NEW DELHI — Five Indian soldiers were killed in an attack along the disputed border with Pakistan in the Kashmir region, a senior Indian official said on Tuesday, in an attack that comes as the two countries were moving toward resuming stalled peace talks.

The talks were called off in January following an attack on the border in which one Indian soldier was decapitated.

"Was briefed early this morning about news that 5 of our soldiers had been killed on the LOC. My heartfelt condolences to their next of kin," Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said in a Tweet, referring to the Line of Control dividing the two countries in the Himalayan region.

Indian media said the latest incident was an attack on an Indian military post.

It comes as the nuclear-armed rivals have been edging closer to restarting peace talks. Pakistan has proposed dates for resuming the talks, and India has been preparing a response.

"This is an extremely unfortunate incident. If Pakistan wants to have better relations with India this is not the way," Indian junior home minister R.P.N. Singh said outside parliament in New Delhi.

A lasting peace between Pakistan and India, which have fought three wars since both gained independence in 1947, has long proved elusive. With many fearing an upsurge in conflict in Afghanistan after Western forces pull out next year, it is even more important for India and Pakistan to ratchet down tension, according to some analysts.

Officials on both sides have said there may be a meeting between Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif - who made better ties with India a theme in his election campaign in May - and his Indian counterpart, Manmohan Singh, on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York in September.

India charges that Pakistan arms and harbors militants in Kashmir, the Muslim-majority territory claimed by both nations, and pushes them across the 740-km (460-mile) de facto border.

Pakistan denies arming the militants, saying it offers only moral support to the people of Kashmir.

There has been a spate of unusually deadly militant attacks on Indian security forces in Kashmir this year. Around 25 militants have been killed by India's armed forces in the past month, according to Indian officials, an unusually high number.

New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2013/08/06/world/asia/06reuters-india-pakistan.html?hp)

ambidex

06 Aug 13,, 08:24

How any other nation would have reacted ?

lemontree

06 Aug 13,, 09:00

How any other nation would have reacted ?

The retaliation will be done in time don't worry.

Defcon5

06 Aug 13,, 09:38

The retaliation will be done in time don't worry.

Capt,

That may be true. But it is more important to seen as retaliating both by your own countrymen as well as the enemy.

lemontree

06 Aug 13,, 09:56

Capt,

That may be true. But it is more important to seen as retaliating both by your own countrymen as well as the enemy.

This is not a TV show, but the enemy will be visited and the media will get their press release.

Defcon5

06 Aug 13,, 10:34

This is not a TV show, but the enemy will be visited and the media will get their press release.

I dont disagree, but morale and opinion of the soldiers and the citizens has a value. It is matter of public perception especially when India seen as a soft and weak target.

gf0012-aust

06 Aug 13,, 10:45

I dont disagree, but morale and opinion of the soldiers and the citizens has a value. It is matter of public perception especially when India seen as a soft and weak target.

politicians may have an idealogical need to react to public angst and anger - militaries should not

Defcon5

06 Aug 13,, 10:56

politicians may have an idealogical need to react to public angst and anger - militaries should not

GF,

If a American soldier is killed or a civilian target attacked, Americans make it a point that there is retribution. George Bush even made a big flex vinyl board of it. Indians are seen by Indians as well as outsiders as a weak and easy target, with no interest in 'hitting back'. It will have impact on everything from who enemies of the state plan operations against them to how the armed forces can recruit in the future. Nobody wants to join a weak force. That is true for high school, that is true for geo politics and that is also true for militaries.

gf0012-aust

06 Aug 13,, 11:03

GF,

If a American soldier is killed or a civilian target attacked, Americans make it a point that there is retribution. George Bush even made a big flex vinyl board of it. Indians are seen by Indians as well as outsiders as a weak and easy target, with no interest in 'hitting back'. It will have impact on everything from who enemies of the state plan operations against them to how the armed forces can recruit in the future. Nobody wants to join a weak force. That is true for high school, that is true for geo politics and that is also true for militaries.

Not so re militaries. Govts refer to their militaries for advice on the merits of a response and the nature of that response - that is completely isolated from the wailing and anger that the press or public might generate

You only have to see the response of US Military senior officers recently to see that they inject caution and pause and do their best to cauterise the emotional pitch that so often comes from the gallery

Having worked in India a few times, I'm more than aware of how the local media (as an example) can try and run the govt down a political lane and force behaviour

in the simplest of terms that is just plain dumb. Govts should be considered in the use of military force and not have that judgement driven by the court of public or press emotion - all the latter does is lead to bad policy and actions.

Defcon5

06 Aug 13,, 11:42

Not so re militaries. Govts refer to their militaries for advice on the merits of a response and the nature of that response - that is completely isolated from the wailing and anger that the press or public might generate

You are talking about a country in which in their strategic committee, they dont even have a military person. Its politicians and bureaucrats.

You only have to see the response of US Military senior officers recently to see that they inject caution and pause and do their best to cauterise the emotional pitch that so often comes from the gallery

You are right about the last few years, even I had similar feelings.

Having worked in India a few times, I'm more than aware of how the local media (as an example) can try and run the govt down a political lane and force behaviour

We have too much freedom and very less money at hand, everybody can be bought.

in the simplest of terms that is just plain dumb. Govts should be considered in the use of military force and not have that judgement driven by the court of public or press emotion - all the latter does is lead to bad policy and actions.

When you have been attacked by non state actors and state actors over decades and there is still no fight back or cost, people will begin to question. I think that is legitimate. Not addressing that concern is also bad policy and action.

What was the US response after Seal Team 6 incident in Afghanistan?

Do be patient with me, I am neither ex military nor a defence professional. My view points are quite layman.

farhan_9909

06 Aug 13,, 12:07

Pakistan denies killing of five Indian soldiers

NEW DELHI / ISLAMABAD / NEELUM VALLEY (LOC): Pakistani security officials denied any involvement on Tuesday in the deaths of Indian soldiers on the disputed and heavily militarised border in Kashmir.
“There was no indiscriminate firing from our side,” one security official told Reuters.

Pakistan denies killing of five Indian soldiers – The Express Tribune (http://tribune.com.pk/story/587152/five-indian-soldiers-killed-on-pakistan-border-claims-india/)

Double Edge

06 Aug 13,, 13:13

in the simplest of terms that is just plain dumb. Govts should be considered in the use of military force and not have that judgement driven by the court of public or press emotion - all the latter does is lead to bad policy and actions.
Agree, last thing we need is to get easily baited and get turned into somebody else's pawn.

Indians are seen by Indians as well as outsiders as a weak and easy target, with no interest in 'hitting back'. It will have impact on everything from who enemies of the state plan operations against them to how the armed forces can recruit in the future. Nobody wants to join a weak force. That is true for high school, that is true for geo politics and that is also true for militaries.
Over reactions are just as detrimental because they make us predictable.

Don't take these incidents personally, its just business. They are going to continue.

India said 20 heavily-armed “terrorists” along with men dressed in Pakistan army uniforms killed five Indian soldiers along the border in the disputed region of Kashmir, in a blow to efforts to resume peace talks.

Indian “army commanders at the appropriate level may take retaliatory action,” said Dipankar Banerjee, a retired major general in the Indian army who served in Kashmir and now a defense analyst with the Forum for Strategic Initiative in New Delhi. “This tit-for-tat is par for the course, and both sides are at it.”

Respect to the dead. R.I.P.

cdude

06 Aug 13,, 14:02

From the NYT article ""The ambush was carried out by approximately 20 heavily armed terrorists along with persons dressed in Pakistan Army uniforms," Indian Defence Minister A.K. Antony said in a statement to parliament."

Can somebody explain to me why Pakistani soldiers would dress in uniform TOGETHER with plain clothed men in the attack? That makes no sense to me. That's an invasion, no? If it's an invasion, why not all in uniforms. Or they just don't care. And if it's an invasion, what makes them terrorists?

And is the accusation based on the words of the sole survivor?

zraver

06 Aug 13,, 14:05

India won't react, she didn't after Mumbai, Parliament or Kabul. Pakistan knows this and so can operate with impunity.

notorious_eagle

06 Aug 13,, 14:20

Could be retaliation for a PA soldier killed by IA last week.

Indian firing killed one Pakistani soldier and wounded another on Saturday in the disputed Kashmir region, Pakistan’s military said, as the two archrivals traded blame for provoking the clash.

India won't react, she didn't after Mumbai, Parliament or Kabul. Pakistan knows this and so can operate with impunity.
True

1999's kargil war and the 2001's military buildup didn't change anything. Cold start and two front war started being taken seriously after the parliament attack. The indian politicians know what is required but that can only happen when india is completely ready which is not now.

Well wait for another tragic incident as a retaliation for this incident. :rolleyes:

Firestorm

06 Aug 13,, 18:54

The incident comes days after the Indian government started talking about dialogue with Pakistan resuming. There was even talk recently about increasing trade, selling electricity and locomotives to Pakistan, etc. Why am I not surprised? The Pakistanis do this every single time. One side, the civvies talk peace, knowing fully well that whatever they say or promise isn't worth sh1t because they don't control the Army or their state-sponsored "non-state actors". The other side starts looking for an opportunity to attack India somehow. If the attack is big enough, the Indian government will make some noises, perhaps suspend the dialogue for a while, but eventually start singing the same tune of trade, dialogue and "confidence-building-measures" and how we shouldn't let terrorism and isolated border incidents affect peace. The Pakistanis meanwhile have a hearty laugh at how gullible the Indians are and start planning their next operation to kill more Indians.

Einstein said doing the same thing over and over and expecting different outcomes was an indication of insanity. Indians seem to think that is a perfectly acceptable foreign policy.

Firestorm

06 Aug 13,, 19:17

The indian politicians know what is required but that can only happen when india is completely ready which is not now.
India will never be "ready". In order to acquire a capability you need the intent first. And in India, there is no intent. People often rue the fact that India does not have the accurate intelligence and covert attack capability to kill Hafeez Saeed and Dawood Ibrahim inside Pakistan. But the lack of a capability is secondary. The primary issue is a lack of intent. I don't think anyone in the government seriously entertained the thought of actually doing it. If you know what you have to do and feel strongly that it needs to be done, you will search for and find a way to do it. In India, the RAW's intelligence network inside Pakistan was once ordered to be dismantled by the then Prime Minister I.K. "Buffoon" Gujral himself, in the interests of "peace". It set RAW's Pakistan operations behind by decades. It was one of the reasons behind the intelligence failure before Kargil. When there is such a glaring lack of national will to protect its citizens and interests, the country can never be "ready" as you say.

Tronic

06 Aug 13,, 22:22

The incident comes days after the Indian government started talking about dialogue with Pakistan resuming. There was even talk recently about increasing trade, selling electricity and locomotives to Pakistan, etc. Why am I not surprised? The Pakistanis do this every single time. One side, the civvies talk peace, knowing fully well that whatever they say or promise isn't worth sh1t because they don't control the Army or their state-sponsored "non-state actors". The other side starts looking for an opportunity to attack India somehow. If the attack is big enough, the Indian government will make some noises, perhaps suspend the dialogue for a while, but eventually start singing the same tune of trade, dialogue and "confidence-building-measures" and how we shouldn't let terrorism and isolated border incidents affect peace. The Pakistanis meanwhile have a hearty laugh at how gullible the Indians are and start planning their next operation to kill more Indians.

The dialogue with Pakistan is not suspended willingly, rather, it is only suspended when the public outrage gets too hot to bear. Indian polity has one goal with respect to Pakistan, and that is to weaken the anti-Indian forces inside that country. How do you go about doing that? Invading the country and attempting to wipe them all out?

The only way to weaken the anti-Indian forces is to allow the reconciliatory forces inside that country to get a foothold in the power chambers, while sidelining the enemy. The Pakistani army is fighting back by trying to stir up trouble, derail the peace process, and make India the evil, aggressive enemy at the doorstep again. To continue to paint India as the one, major existential threat ensures the PA's relevance in Pakistani politics; a ground which it has been loosing to the civvies lately.

So India reacting violently does nothing but kill a few, replaceable, Pakistani foot soldiers, while empowering and breathing life into the Pakistani army.

Truth is, the enemy wants India to react violently.

Firestorm

06 Aug 13,, 22:51

The dialogue with Pakistan is not suspended willingly, rather, it is only suspended when the public outrage gets too hot to bear.
How silly of the people to express outrage when they are being culled like cattle.

Indian polity has one goal with respect to Pakistan, and that is to weaken the anti-Indian forces inside that country.
Well, then I must say they have failed spectacularly to achieve their goal in 60 years. We need an ROFL icon.

How do you go about doing that? Invading the country and attempting to wipe them all out?
One of the quietest periods was after 1971. And no, we weren't trying to wipe them out. They were doing that themselves. The PA just needed to understand that there are consequences to their actions. Now they know we are not willing or able to teach them that lesson again, and they are making us pay.

The only way to weaken the anti-Indian forces is to allow the reconciliatory forces inside that country to get a foothold in the power chambers, while sidelining the enemy.

Who are these mythical reconciliatory forces? Is backstabber-in-chief Nawaz Sharif one of them? Or is Im-the-Dim our knight in shining armor?

The Pakistani army is fighting back by trying to stir up trouble, derail the peace process, and make India the evil, aggressive enemy at the doorstep again. To continue to paint India as the one, major existential threat ensures the PA's relevance in Pakistani politics; a ground which it has been loosing to the civvies lately.

The Pakistani Army and their terrorist buddies are killing Indians. Everything else is secondary. We can't allow the price of some power struggle in pakistan to be paid in Indian blood.

So India reacting violently does nothing but kill a few, replaceable, Pakistani foot soldiers, while empowering and breathing life into the Pakistani army.
The PA is hale and hearty without us breathing life into them. Maybe we should try sucking the life out of them for a change. If we can.

Truth is, the enemy wants India to react violently.
This is what we tell ourselves to hide our weakness and justify inaction. I guess OBL too wanted the Americans to react violently. They did. And now he's dead. Hafeez Saeed is still roaming free. He doesn't even need to hide.

antimony

06 Aug 13,, 23:02

As I have said previously on this forum, India needs to cease relations with Pakistani, strengthen the borders and be on a constant state of alert. I am sure the money saved from the diplomatic missions and the damage control from the constant terror raids would be worth it

The small amount of trade we do with them is not worth any relations at all.

Tronic

06 Aug 13,, 23:29

One of the quietest periods was after 1971. And no, we weren't trying to wipe them out. They were doing that themselves. The PA just needed to understand that there are consequences to their actions. Now they know we are not willing or able to teach them that lesson again, and they are making us pay.

Terror wasn't a tactic developed by them till the '80s.

Who are these mythical reconciliatory forces? Is backstabber-in-chief Nawaz Sharif one of them? Or is Im-the-Dim our knight in shining armor?

Yes, they are.

The Pakistani Army and their terrorist buddies are killing Indians. Everything else is secondary. We can't allow the price of some power struggle in pakistan to be paid in Indian blood.

It ain't a Pakistani power struggle when you have a stake in it.

(As for the outrage against spilled Indian blood; nobody has spilled more Indian blood than Indians themselves. Where is the outrage there?)

The PA is hale and hearty without us breathing life into them. Maybe we should try sucking the life out of them for a change. If we can.

Been there, done that.

This is what we tell ourselves to hide our weakness and justify inaction. I guess OBL too wanted the Americans to react violently. They did. And now he's dead.

Americans don't live beside Pakistan. They're packing up and leaving. Where should India pack up to?

Hafeez Saeed is still roaming free. He doesn't even need to hide.

Hafeez Saeed is not half as dangerous as is ISI handlers. Whacking an overt pawn who proves Pakistan's complicity in terror does nothing to erode their terror exporting capabilities.

Maybe it will help placate some egos on this side of the border, though.

Firestorm

07 Aug 13,, 00:01

Terror wasn't a tactic developed by them till the '80s.

They did that because they wanted plausible deniability. If we show them we don't care about their deniability their new tactic fails. In any case, you don't stop fighting because your enemy develops a new tactic.

Yes, they are.
Really? Why is the Nawaz of today different from the Nawaz of 1999? And what exactly has Im the Dim done to convince you that he is our great white hope?

It ain't a Pakistani power struggle when you have a stake in it.
I don't care what happens to pakistan. There's enough sh1t to worry about in India. Our only interest in Pakistan is that they leave us alone and so far they don't see to get that. We need to drive home our point.

(As for the outrage against spilled Indian blood; nobody has spilled more Indian blood than Indians themselves. Where is the outrage there?)
So because Indians kill Indians, pakistanis should also be allowed to kill Indians with impunity? What happens in India is dealt with by the justice system and there is enough outrage when incidents happen. If you count the murders and shootings in the US over a period, more Americans have killed Americans than AQ has. The taliban killed a grand total of zero Americans before 2001. So the US should never have gone into Afghanistan then I guess?

Been there, done that.
They have since re-inflated.

Americans don't live beside Pakistan. They're packing up and leaving. Where should India pack up to?
Why do we need to go anywhere? What can they do to us that they aren't doing already?

Hafeez Saeed is not half as dangerous as is ISI handlers. Whacking an overt pawn who proves Pakistan's complicity in terror does nothing to erode their terror exporting capabilities.

Maybe it will help placate some egos on this side of the border, though.
This takes the cake. So when a murderer is punished is it to placate egos? Did the Americans kill OBL to placate their ego? And how do you suggest we deal with the ISI handlers. Are you naive enough to believe that Nawaz Sharif and Taliban Khan are going to stop them from attacking us again?

Tronic

07 Aug 13,, 01:09

They did that because they wanted plausible deniability. If we show them we don't care about their deniability their new tactic fails. In any case, you don't stop fighting because your enemy develops a new tactic.

Fight for what? What objectives are you fighting for? You don't go to war just for the sake of going to war...

Really? Why is the Nawaz of today different from the Nawaz of 1999? And what exactly has Im the Dim done to convince you that he is our great white hope?

"Our great white hope"? Not exactly 'ours'... Nawaz and "Im-the-dim" win over the Pak army because they don't need enmity with India to stay relevant. Moreover, in Nawaz's case, he actually needs the opposite to dilute PA's hold on Pakistani politics in Pakistan. Afterall, Nawaz was toppled by none other than the PA.

I don't care what happens to pakistan. There's enough sh1t to worry about in India. Our only interest in Pakistan is that they leave us alone and so far they don't see to get that. We need to drive home our point.

Layman's argument... You have to care and be a player in Pakistan's internal happenings if you wish to influence their behaviour.

So because Indians kill Indians, pakistanis should also be allowed to kill Indians with impunity? What happens in India is dealt with by the justice system and there is enough outrage when incidents happen. If you count the murders and shootings in the US over a period, more Americans have killed Americans than AQ has. The taliban killed a grand total of zero Americans before 2001. So the US should never have gone into Afghanistan then I guess?

It wasn't Indian criminals I was talking about... a subject for another topic, nevertheless.

They have since re-inflated.

So maybe that's not the solution to the problem... Try something else.

Why do we need to go anywhere? What can they do to us that they aren't doing already?

You wanted to copy the Americans. I merely pointed out that our position is a whole lot different than theirs. They have the luxury to leave the region. We don't.

This takes the cake. So when a murderer is punished is it to placate egos?

The PA soldier was killed in cross border firing not by an intruding raiding party, but now the PA is "OK" to play the raiding game. Expect the response in the same coin.

lemontree

07 Aug 13,, 05:06

From the NYT article ""The ambush was carried out by approximately 20 heavily armed terrorists along with persons dressed in Pakistan Army uniforms," Indian Defence Minister A.K. Antony said in a statement to parliament."

Can somebody explain to me why Pakistani soldiers would dress in uniform TOGETHER with plain clothed men in the attack? That makes no sense to me. That's an invasion, no? If it's an invasion, why not all in uniforms. Or they just don't care. And if it's an invasion, what makes them terrorists?
No difference between Pak Army and jihadi terrorists, they are the same. You should know they train the Xinjiang muslim jihadis in the Haqqani camps in Zhawara.

And is the accusation based on the words of the sole survivor?
Why should we disbelieve a survivor of the ambush?....and its not an accusation, but an "after action debrief".

Mohan

07 Aug 13,, 08:49

Two Pakistani soldiers wounded in fresh firing at LoC - The Times of India (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Two-Pakistani-soldiers-wounded-in-fresh-firing-at-LoC/articleshow/21673315.cms)

The response in the same coin is being delivered as we speak.

"A senior Indian Army officer in J&K said two Pakistani soldiers had been wounded - or possibly killed - in an exchange of machinegun fire in Kamalkot Uri sector in northern Kashmir around midday on Tuesday"

anil

07 Aug 13,, 09:05

India will never be "ready". In order to acquire a capability you need the intent first. And in India, there is no intent. People often rue the fact that India does not have the accurate intelligence and covert attack capability to kill Hafeez Saeed and Dawood Ibrahim inside Pakistan. But the lack of a capability is secondary. The primary issue is a lack of intent. I don't think anyone in the government seriously entertained the thought of actually doing it. If you know what you have to do and feel strongly that it needs to be done, you will search for and find a way to do it. In India, the RAW's intelligence network inside Pakistan was once ordered to be dismantled by the then Prime Minister I.K. "Buffoon" Gujral himself, in the interests of "peace". It set RAW's Pakistan operations behind by decades. It was one of the reasons behind the intelligence failure before Kargil. When there is such a glaring lack of national will to protect its citizens and interests, the country can never be "ready" as you say.
An actual war is where one opponent invades the other and takes over the capital. Such a capability warrants one's own defence industry. You can't just buy your gear from the free market and invade islamabad, the US won't let that happen. Beijing neither, they form a part of the world order.

To actually fight a conclusive war against pakistan, US and china, we need russia. But even back in 1971 war, the russians were not confident about taking on the US. Since the russians couldn't guarantee our backs, we couldn't march to islamabad. I think the russians decided that it was not their war.

Not much has changed since then.

Defcon5

07 Aug 13,, 09:28

The dialogue with Pakistan is not suspended willingly, rather, it is only suspended when the public outrage gets too hot to bear. Indian polity has one goal with respect to Pakistan, and that is to weaken the anti-Indian forces inside that country. How do you go about doing that? Invading the country and attempting to wipe them all out?

The only way to weaken the anti-Indian forces is to allow the reconciliatory forces inside that country to get a foothold in the power chambers, while sidelining the enemy. The Pakistani army is fighting back by trying to stir up trouble, derail the peace process, and make India the evil, aggressive enemy at the doorstep again. To continue to paint India as the one, major existential threat ensures the PA's relevance in Pakistani politics; a ground which it has been loosing to the civvies lately.

So India reacting violently does nothing but kill a few, replaceable, Pakistani foot soldiers, while empowering and breathing life into the Pakistani army.

Truth is, the enemy wants India to react violently.

If that is what India wants it is a fools dream. The pro-india forces in that country are next to nil. The amount of death, destruction and compromises India will have to face and to make this pro-india faction to succeed will be enormous. Frankly, is not worth it.

The enemy wants you to react violently, but the enemy also wants you to be an 'idiot' and bend over backwards for that 'illusive' pro india faction and give them many things for which they dont even have to fire a bullet or expend blood.

There are many other profitable ways for India to weaken 'bad pakistan' than being a complete idiot.

Deltacamelately

07 Aug 13,, 10:44

Its quid-pro-quo. Not something to lose sleep overnight, once you accept that the two forces have virtually always been in a state of war, yonder.

Double Edge

07 Aug 13,, 12:33

True

1999's kargil war and the 2001's military buildup didn't change anything. Cold start and two front war started being taken seriously after the parliament attack. The indian politicians know what is required but that can only happen when india is completely ready which is not now.
We are not going to help the Paks by internationalising the Kashmir conflict. Who talks about Kashmir nowadays ? do we want more people to come poking their noses around it. When pushed we reacted like with Kargil and no more. But it means the Paks have to up the ante and everybody gets to see who the troublemaker is. Increase their cost & liability. Not give them a bargain. Pakistan is in the doghouse as far as international perceptions are concerned. They are in a hole, let them dig themselves out of it without our help.

We are not going to bail the Paks out every time they have internal conflicts by threatening to attack and in one fell swoop uniting them and making them forget their differences at our own expense.

These incidents are mosquito bites. Our policy until the next elections is 'zero problems with the neighbours'.

Its in both countries interest to normalise relations. Why is it so easy to interfere with that process. Does anybody see a problem with this ? Reaction to these incidents is not to stop talks but to continue and not let them get derailed. This will strengthen the civvies in Pakistan. Remember the PA is on the backfoot after the arab spring. Best thing for the PA like the Israel army is to not make too much noise right now. We have to exploit this given the new context.

Cold start is useless with nukes in the picture. Not much room for manouver warfare, we are back to the good old days of attrition. Good for Pak deterrence, good for peace on the sub-continent.

Ready ? for what and to what end. Heh, this 'ready' talk is pure fantasy and just playing to people's emotions. What a red herring. We've always been ready to respond when the price was right. That has not changed since independence.

This, and only this, do we know for a fact: early this month, Zafran Ghulam Sarwar, Wajid Akbar, Mohammad Wajid Akbar and Mohammad Faisal left their homes on the Pakistani side of the control in the Neelam valley, and never came back. Pakistan claims they were innocent herb collectors, who were kidnapped by an Indian special forces engaged in an offensive counter-terrorism operation across the Line of Control.

India says it has no idea what happened to the men. Not long after they disappeared, though, five still-unidentified men were shot dead by Indian troops in the same area, 500 metres on the Indian side of the Line of Control. Naresh Vij, an Indian army spokesperson, said troops had “not recovered any bodies as they are lying very far.”

Privately, Indian intelligence officials posted in the sector speculate the men may have indeed been targetted by special forces — but insist they were guides for jihadist groups crossing the Line of Control, not innocent men executed by the army for no reason at all.

Like everything else to do with the secret war Indian and Pakistani troops are locked in along the Line of Control, the facts are opaque. Few, charged with nationalist passions, are much interested in the truth, anyway.

Monday’s killing of five troops from the 21 Bihar Regiment, marks the first significant crisis in India-Pakistan relations since Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif took power earlier this year.

The ambush, highly-placed army sources have told Firstpost, was almost certainly carried out to retaliate against a series of successful Indian operations in the northern stretches of the Line of Control. It targeted a routine patrol in a relatively peaceful area, near the Chakan-da-Bagh cross-Line of Control trading post.

The sources said a sixth soldier on the patrol, who escaped the firing, is being questioned to determine precisely what happened. Early accounts, though, all point to a disciplined, military-style operation.

The ambush comes, as Firstpost recently revealed, amidst the first year that violence in Jammu and Kashmir has shown an uptick since the near-war of 2001-2002. In the last week of July alone, 12 jihadists were killed in northern Kashmir’s Kupwara district— levels of infiltration not seen in years. In the last major encounter, five terrorists were killed short of Hema post, on the Line of Control in Kupwara. The Line of Control (LoC)in the Jammu region has seen 42 exchanges of fire this year, the sources said, up from 28 in all of 2012.

This, however, we do also know: last night’s lethal ambush in Poonch was just the latest in phase in a secret war along the Line of Control that have continued apace since the beheadings of Lance-Naik Hem Raj and Lance-Naik Sudhakar Naik in January. Friction between the two armies has been re-erupted periodically since February, when Pakistan alleged that one of its soldiers had been executed in cold blood after accidentally straying across the Line of Control and being taken prisoner. India, however, disputed this version of events. “We detected some suspicious movement near the LoC inside our territory and the challengers from our side fired”, said Lieutenant-Colonel Rajesh Kalia, a spokesperson for the Indian army.

Late last month, Pakistan complained that “unprovoked” Indian fire had led to the death of Sepoy Asim Iqbal in the Nazia Peer sector, near the town of Rawlakote.

India, however, said the firing began in response to an infiltration attempt.

The fighting had its genesis in events that began in October, when Pakistan complained of new Indian border works at Charunda, in Uri. India responded that the works were purely defensive, intended to prevent illegal border crossings. The unresolved dispute led to exchanges of fire, which eventually escalated into shelling and the killings of soldiers on both sides. The beheading of Indian soldiers in January was the culmination of a long series of attacks and counter-attacks— a vicious cycle driven by the Pakistan army’s continued support of jihadist infiltration into Kashmir.

The November 2003 ceasefire, Indian diplomatic sources say, was based on an unwritten “agreement,” which in essence stipulated that neither side would reinforce its fortifications along the Line of Control — a measure first agreed to after the 1971 war. In 2006, the two sides exchanged drafts for a formal agreement — but the talks have stalled.

Long before the dispute over border construction, though, several similar cross-border clashes had taken place. In March, 1998, an Indian special forces unit is alleged to have killed 22 civilians at the village of Bandala, in the Chhamb sector; two villagers decapitated; the eyes of several others were allegedly gouged out by the attackers. The Pakistani military claimed to have recovered an Indian-made watch from the scene of the carnage, along with a hand-written note which asked, “How does your own blood feel?”

The Bandala massacre is alleged to have been carried to avenge massacre of 29 Hindu villagers at Prankote, in Jammu and Kashmir, by the Lashkar-e-Taiba. The Lashkar attackers slit the throats of their victims, which included women and infants.

Large-scale civilian killings did not take place again, but the Indian army continued to dish out at least as good as it got. In May 1999, as the Kargil war broke out, Captain Saurabh Kalia, along with sepoys Bhanwar Lal Bagaria, Arjun Ram, Bhika Ram, Moola Ram and Naresh Singh, were kidnapped by Pakistani troops. Post mortem revealed that the men’s bodies had been burned with cigarette-ends and their genitals mutilated.

Late in January, 2000, seven Pakistani soldiers were alleged to have been captured in a raid on a post in the Nadala enclave, across the Neelam River. The seven soldiers were allegedly tied up and dragged across a ravine running across the LoC. The bodies were returned, according to Pakistan, bearing signs of brutal torture.

There have been a string of smaller incidents since the ceasefire went into force. In June, 2008, Pakistani troops attacked the Kranti border observation post near Salhotri village in Poonch, killing 2-8 Gurkha Regiment soldiers in Jawashwar Chhame.

The retaliation, when it came, was savage: Pakistani officials allege Indian troops beheaded a soldier and carried his head across on 19 June, 2008, in the Bhattal sector in Poonch.

Finally on 30 August, 2011, Pakistan complained that three soldiers, including a JCO, were beheaded in an Indian raid on a post in the Sharda sector, across the Neelam river valley in Kel— retaliation for the decapitation of two Indian soldiers near Karnah.

There’s unlikely to be an end to this savagery until cross-border infiltration ends, and that’s something that seems ever more unlikely. For Pakistan’s army, facing an existential battle with the Tehreek-e-Taliban that it is unable to win, precipitating a crisis with India is an attractive option. In the wake of 26/11, jihadists vowed to rally behind Pakistan if war with India broke out; that promise has since been renewed periodically.

It is self-evident that preventing a rapprochement between jihadists and the generals is in India’s best interest — the reason why both Prime Ministers Atal Behari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh proved willing to pay the political price for a policy of strategic restraint. India’s own looming elections, though, are making such restraint ever more difficult for political leaders to practice.

@DE
Pranab-da shares your views. Though I believe his views were in line with the circumstances.

I don't share your thoughts about the pakistani civilian govt. As pakistan becomes more chaotic, the people are going to find solace in the PA.

Either way the pak civilian govt is as good as non-existent and if any exists then it does as a frontal org of the PA.

cdude

07 Aug 13,, 23:18

No difference between Pak Army and jihadi terrorists, they are the same. You should know they train the Xinjiang muslim jihadis in the Haqqani camps in Zhawara.

Why should we disbelieve a survivor of the ambush?....and its not an accusation, but an "after action debrief".

The attack happened in the early morning? So how accurate can you tell what the attackers look like from the distance.

Of course there is a difference between the two. CIA trained jihadists and is still training, but nobody says they are the same.

Double Edge

08 Aug 13,, 00:35

I don't share your thoughts about the pakistani civilian govt. As pakistan becomes more chaotic, the people are going to find solace in the PA.

Either way the pak civilian govt is as good as non-existent and if any exists then it does as a frontal org of the PA.
If the Paks want to take control of their lives then their civvies need to be strengthened. That they inevitably end up fronting the army is precisely because they are so weak. Have we ever thought along those lines without being tripped up numerous times along the way.

Who are we reaching out to in that country ? The PA.

Domestic politics in India forces us to oblige the PA whenever they want us to. If Pakistan gets more chaotic they can always rely on India to bail them out. Who is calling the shots here.

Remember the Salala incident. Who apoligised to who. Is this what India should emulate.

@DE
Pranab-da shares your views. Though I believe his views were in line with the circumstances.
These are his ideas. Since 26/11 we decided not to cooperate. For a change.

lemontree

08 Aug 13,, 07:12

Cold start is useless with nukes in the picture. Not much room for manouver warfare, we are back to the good old days of attrition. Good for Pak deterrence, good for peace on the sub-continent.
???...how did you come to that conclusion. Cold start is the only option with nukes in the picture.

lemontree

08 Aug 13,, 07:31

The attack happened in the early morning? So how accurate can you tell what the attackers look like from the distance.
Yes you can...in the dark one can make out the silhouette of army uniforms.

CIA trained jihadists and is still training, but nobody says they are the same.
CIA never trained the jihadis of Turkestan Islamic Party.

cdude

08 Aug 13,, 13:39

Yes you can...in the dark one can make out the silhouette of army uniforms.

Out of silhouettes at night, in the heat of a attack, from the distance, one could tell uniforms from non-uniforms. OK. This is what he saw. Wait, still too bright.

33558

Officer of Engineers

08 Aug 13,, 15:46

Not accurate. The human eye catches movement far better than still silhouettes. I can make out women and children at night and I can tell a uniformed fitting silhoueete moving into position.

cdude

08 Aug 13,, 16:24

Not accurate. The human eye catches movement far better than still silhouettes. I can make out women and children at night and I can tell a uniformed fitting silhoueete moving into position.

From the NYT
["The ambush was carried out by approximately 20 heavily armed terrorists along with persons dressed in Pakistan Army uniforms," Defence Minister A.K. Antony told parliament.
Indian army sources said the latest attack took place in the early hours of Tuesday about 450 m (500 yards) inside Indian territory, where six soldiers were on patrol. One soldier was wounded.]

Looks like the patrols got ambushed, it's interesting how the sole wounded survivor could provide such details of the attackers. By "early hours", I assume it's before dawn?

Officer of Engineers

08 Aug 13,, 17:17

If it's a firefight, barrel flash would add light to the attacker.

cdude

08 Aug 13,, 18:14

If it's a firefight, barrel flash would add light to the attacker.

Probably, but by how much. Now I have never fired at night. I found this on youtube, doesn't seem to add much light.

Fight for what? What objectives are you fighting for? You don't go to war just for the sake of going to war...

What do you think? Pakistan is killing Indian citizens and soldiers through its army and terrorist proxies. The Army may retaliate for border incidents. But piecemeal retaliations are clearly not having an effect. The civilian deaths go unanswered anyways. Sometimes the only way to stop somebody from punching you is to stop trying to reason with him and kick him in the groin.

"Our great white hope"? Not exactly 'ours'... Nawaz and "Im-the-dim" win over the Pak army because they don't need enmity with India to stay relevant. Moreover, in Nawaz's case, he actually needs the opposite to dilute PA's hold on Pakistani politics in Pakistan. Afterall, Nawaz was toppled by none other than the PA.
And the last thing he did before he was toppled is backstab India. Musharraf may have informed him quite late of what the PA was up to. But Nawaz's response to it wasn't asking them to come back instantly. He was more interested in when they would deliver Kashmir. The army and civvies may fight amongst themselves, but when it comes to India they all want the same thing. In case you had forgotten, Pakistan started the kashmir insurgency when the civvie Benazir Bhutto was in power, with her full blessings.

As for Imran, he is the Army's boy anyway.

Layman's argument... You have to care and be a player in Pakistan's internal happenings if you wish to influence their behaviour.
And you are going to influence their behavior by talking to Nawaz and Co.? Do you seriously believe that the answer to terrorism is to plead with a powerless Pakistani civilian government who for all we know are privately delighted that the 1000 cuts strategy is still going strong.

It wasn't Indian criminals I was talking about... a subject for another topic, nevertheless.
I hope you aren't going to stoop to the level of making a perverse comparison between Pakistan sponsored terrorist attacks and military attacks on the border with communal riots in India.

So maybe that's not the solution to the problem... Try something else.
We did, it failed even worse. At least we got some respite with the previous method. We just need to try harder. And if we are not strong enough to fight back, at least don't try to make love to our attacker which is what we are doing. Dialogue, increasing trade and CBM's are basically protection money we are trying to give to someone who has no control over his rabid dog that is attacking us and probably would like nothing better than to see the dog tear us apart.

You wanted to copy the Americans. I merely pointed out that our position is a whole lot different than theirs. They have the luxury to leave the region. We don't.
yes, our situation is different from theirs. When they were attacked, they came halfway across the world to fight their attackers. Our response is to have tea and biscuits with ours who are right next door. And yeah, send them dossiers.

We're talking geopolitics... cost/benefit... In this specific case; yes.
So Americans killing OBL is Ok. Indians wanting to kill Saeed is just placating egos. See my post earlier about lack of intent in India. You seem to be a prime example.

America went to open war against AQ. You suggesting we do the same against LeT? I'm telling you that we can't..
We are already at war with the LeT in Kashmir and other parts of India. Their handlers and sponsors are safe however. We need to remedy that.

Keep them busy protecting themselves while continuing to stay out of the headlines.
ISI has been constantly under attack in Pakistan and to me, that will suffice.
Associating India with such attacks will be nothing short of stoking fanboyish egos.
They seem to have too much time left over after protecting themselves to plan and execute attacks against us. And what attacks have I associated India with? My whole point is that we haven't carried out any attacks.

I'm well aware that they don't have that power... but they need to be allowed to outgrow the PA.
They had 66 years to do that. The PA has only gotten smarter. Instead of taking control themselves and be blamed for whatever goes wrong, they now let the civvies have the illusion of power while they still do whatever they want.

Officer of Engineers

08 Aug 13,, 19:13

Probably, but by how much. Now I have never fired at night. I found this on youtube, doesn't seem to add much light.You're not looking through night adjusted eyes and night skies. Your eyes need 30 minutes to adjust to night.

NEW DELHI: When defence minister AK Antony said Pakistan army's "specialist troops" were involved in the attack that killed five Indian soldiers in the Poonch district of Jammu & Kashmir on Tuesday, he was actually pointing to the involvement of the elite Special Services Group (SSG).

Army sources, in fact, said the well-planned, military-style ambush of the soldiers around 450 metres inside Indian territory was probably the handiwork of the " Musa company" of the Pakistan army's SSG, which consists of special forces commandos trained for covert and irregular missions behind enemy lines, in conjunction with terrorists.

The "imprint" of SSG was also clear in the beheading of an Indian soldier and the mutilation of another's body by a Pakistan "border action team (BAT)" in the Mendhar sector on January 8. This was then confirmed by Army chief General Bikram Singh himself.

This time too, after Gen Bikram Singh visited Kashmir on Wednesday to talk to the local commanders and "piece together" the well-planned, military-style ambush that killed the five Indian soldiers, he briefed Antony before the minister made his statement in Parliament.

"It is now clear the specialist troops of Pakistan Army were involved in this attack when a group from PoK crossed the LoC and killed our brave jawans. We all know that nothing happens from Pakistan's side of the line of control without support, assistance, facilitation and often, direct involvement of the Pakistan army," said Antony.

"Those in Pakistan who are responsible for this tragedy and the brutal killing of two soldiers earlier this year should not go unpunished. Pakistan should also show determined action to dismantle the terrorist networks, organizations and infrastructure and show tangible movement on bringing those responsible for the Mumbai terrorist attack in November 2008 to justice quickly," he added.

Though its first battalion was raised in the mid-1950s, the SSG came into its own when General Pervez Musharraf was the president of Pakistan from 2001 to 2008. Musharraf, as a young officer, had served in SSG from 1966 to 1972, which included a stint as a SSG company commander during the 1971 war.

"The SSG had three battalions (each with 700 personnel) till 2004. Four more battalions were raised between 2004 and 2006, tasked differently for missions in mountains, deserts or plains. Moreover, Pakistan army has three independent commando companies — Musa for amphibious operations and Zarrar for counterterrorism," said an Army officer.

The SSG commandos, or the "black storks" as they are called due to their uniform colour, are said to have made daring raids on Indian Army positions during the 1971 war even as the Pakistan army was thrashed by Indian forces. The SSG commandos were also among the first batches of intruders which crossed the LoC into Kargil in 1999 to establish fortified positions in the icy heights that finally led to an armed conflict between the two countries.

NEW DELHI: The spurt in terrorist infiltration from Pakistan has been at a five-year high. India's security establishment expects this to grow exponentially after the US withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan in 2014.

The security environment will be significantly altered as well, prompting India to put in place a number of plans for the different scenarios that could play out. For many in the security establishment, it's a menu of bad options.

India's threat perceptions of being a major terror target from Pakistan-sponsored groups have sharpened in the recent past, as it has become clear that supposedly India-centric groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed are much closer to al-Qaida than ever before.

A report by the UN Security Council this week on al-Qaida highlights the dangers for India — "Lashkar-e-Taiba continues to provide advanced terrorist training, including on improvised explosive devices", says the report.

"Although recruiting primarily from the Punjab province of Pakistan, Lashkar-e-Taiba continues to be active in Afghanistan and India as well as Pakistan. Its transnational reach and its highly specialized training remain a cause for concern."

The convergence of "interests" of al-Qaida and LeT not only puts India in the crosshairs of jihadi activity, but it would also mean their interests would coincide with the Pakistan army's intentions vis-a-vis India.

Security officials say there may be more instances of terrorists and Pakistan forces working together certainly keeping the LoC more active. 'Pakistan PM, Nawaz Sharif's party, PML(N) recently allocated $620,000 to facilities run by Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), parent body of LeT, highlighting the blurred lines between the establishment and terror groups.

The decade of US presence in Afghanistan has been beneficial for India. Not only has India vastly improved its own presence in Afghanistan. Having lived for a decade or more under the protection of the US in Afghanistan, India will have to fend for itself, its interests and people, as well as ensure that the Kabul government does not fall prey to Taliban and other al-Qaida affiliates. The possibility that al-Qaida may strike roots in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region again has security implications for India.

Here, it would make sense for India to support the Karzai government with weapons and security assistance. Yet, the Indian government has refused to fulfil a "wishlist" of weapons that Karzai said he gave to the Indian government. Speaking in Singapore recently, foreign minister Salman Khurshid was quoted as saying, "We are going to help with non-lethal equipment but I don't think we are either in the position to or willing to contribute lethal weapons right now."

India, he said, already supplies equipment like helicopters. But Khurshid said, "We think it is not advisable to go beyond that. It is a fragile area, there are stakeholders, there are other people. We don't want to become part of the problem. "This has been interpreted to mean that India doesn't want to rile Pakistan by giving arms to Afghanistan.

India is, therefore, at the forefront of global curiosity, along with Pakistan — for different reasons — about the ultimate troop levels the US will leave behind. This figured front and centre during the talks between Prime Minister and US Vice-President Joe Biden in the last week of July.

Biden is believed to have assured India that the "zero option" would not be followed though nobody seems to be clear that how many US troops would be staying behind in Afghanistan after 2014. But the number of US troops in Afghanistan is dependent on a bilateral security agreement (BSA) to be signed between Hamid Karzai and the US. Afghanistan has been holding back on the agreement to show its displeasure at US's attempts to start direct talks with the Taliban.

The US has asked for India's assistance to convince the Afghanistan President. India is likely to be playing this role when Afghanistan Vice-President Mohammed Fahim will visit New Delhi later this month.

Critics allege that India is not only throwing Afghanistan under the jihadi bus being run from Pakistan, but also dealing itself out of the security equation in Afghanistan in the years to come. That by itself could have adverse implications for India's security.

In fact, one of the reasons India has not been able to articulate a clear security strategy for the post 2014 phase is the fact that there is no clarity in New Delhi about what might happen.

Khurshid has gone on record to say, "I think it is too early for the Americans to give us the full picture. Afghans themselves are unable to give a full picture. I have been to the Heart of Asia (ministerial) conference and apart from the fact that everybody was clearly remaining committed to the future of Afghanistan, as we do, there are no clear roadmaps about what can happen during 2014."

Firestorm

08 Aug 13,, 19:32

If the Paks want to take control of their lives then their civvies need to be strengthened. That they inevitably end up fronting the army is precisely because they are so weak. Have we ever thought along those lines without being tripped up numerous times along the way.

This "strengthen the civvies" argument is rapidly getting stale from an Indian point of view. The civvies have been strong before. It did not help India-Pakistan relations one bit. Stop thinking from an American perspective. Pakistani elites love the US regardless of what they might say in public. Most of them have family there or in Canada. They aren't your typical religious nuts and do not think of the West as the great satan. They make up most of the civil admin and if they get more power, it is obviously better for the US. It makes absolutely no difference to India. Their view about India is no different from that of an average jihadi.

Who are we reaching out to in that country ? The PA.
We are reaching out to the PA? Since when? And how? The PA does not want to reach out to us.

Domestic politics in India forces us to oblige the PA whenever they want us to. If Pakistan gets more chaotic they can always rely on India to bail them out. Who is calling the shots here.
So people asking for retaliation against an external foe who is killing them is domestic politics now. Or am I misunderstanding you?

Remember the Salala incident. Who apoligised to who. Is this what India should emulate.
Salala was essentially friendly fire. The US and Pakistan are officially allies. So there was an apology necessary. India and paksitan are a totally different case. There are cross-border firing incidents all the time. Nobody apologizes.

These are his ideas. Since 26/11 we decided not to cooperate. For a change.
Not to cooperate with whom? I see no difference in our pakistan policy before and after 26/11. It follows the same stages.

Outrage from the people and "strong words of condemnation" from the politicos.
GOI blames pakistan based terrorist groups, sends info about them to paksitan.
Suspension of dialogue and cricket matches.
Time passes. Terrorists remain free.
Calls from some political parties and bleeding heart liberal journalists, to resume dialogue and "engage" with pakistan.
Resumption of dialogue and cricket. Offers to increase trade. Everything seems hunky dory. meanwhile the ISI and PA plan a new attack.
New border incident or terrorist attack and the cycle continues...

Double Edge

08 Aug 13,, 22:01

???...how did you come to that conclusion. Cold start is the only option with nukes in the picture.
Heard it in a passing comment over at Carnegie a few months ago.

We progressed from attrition to manouever and once the nukes got into the picture we have to go back to attrition. Nobody knows what the Pak threshold is, so we increased ours. It will require some serious plain as day aggression on their part to get us to breach their borders. Even Kargil wasn't enough. This is all good, nothing exciting to happen in this part of the world for some time to come hopefully.

Kargil did not work, they followed up with parliament atttack, we mobilsed and then demobilised, we have a string of bomb attacks culminating in 26/11. Nothing out of India. From Kargil to the present day this seems to be the trend. This is the noughties thinking as opposed to the good old ways of the past.

So what do you do. We've discussed this earlier here in another way. What we do is call their bluff. I suspect we won't get that far before the party gets shut down by others. Land swaps concluded and its over. Cold start might net us a bit more but that's about it.

Officer of Engineers

08 Aug 13,, 23:12

Nobody knows what the Pak threshold is,4 Days minimum. 2 Days to get a choherant battle picture. 1 Day to decide. 1 Day to mate warheads to delivery vehicles.

notorious_eagle

09 Aug 13,, 00:06

by Praveen Swami Aug 7, 2013

Even as fresh skirmishes rage along the northern reaches of the Line of Control, new details are emerging on the controversial killing of four Pakistani men on the Line of Control, an incident which is believed to have set off a spiral of clashes culminating in Monday’s lethal ambush of troops near Chakan-da-Bagh in Poonch. Pakistan has alleged that the four men were kidnapped by Indian troops operating across the Line of Control.

Police documentation exclusively obtained by Firstpost suggests that Zafran Ghulam Sarwar, Shah Zaman, Muhammad Faisal and Wajid Akbar may have been killed near Katwar Post, a forward position along the Line of Control in the Macchel sector, along the Neelam river, late on the night of 29 July.

Firstpost had broken news, on Tuesday, about concerns that the alleged killings and skirmishes which followed it may have triggered off a cycle leading to the killings of five Indian troops in Poonch-sparking off the worst India-Pakistan crisis in months.

In a First Information Report filed on 30 July, Indian troops said they had killed four unidentified Pakistani intruders. The FIR records the army’s statement that it recovered a AK-56 assault rifle, three pistols and a 12-bore shotgun from the group.

“You would expect terrorists to carry weapons like the AK-56″, a senior Jammu and Kashmir-based army officer said, “but I can’t understand what they’d be doing with a 12-bore gun, which is typically used for hunting small prey”.

He also noted it was unusual for an infiltrating group of four terrorists to possess only one assault rifle, and no grenades or communication equipment.

Local residents, who helped bury the bodies after they were handed over to local police through a special police officer attached to the army, said at least two of the men were wearing rubber flip-flops-again, unusual gear for men who had infiltrated mountain passes leading through the rugged Neelam valley.

The FIR was signed on behalf of the 56 Rashtriya Rifles by its adjutant. The Rashtriya Rifles, drawn from various army formations, is generally deployed on counter-insurgency duties inside Jammu and Kashmir. However, the 56 Rashtriya Rifles operates up to the fencing running along the Line of Control.

It remains unclear, though, if the four men were, as Pakistan claims, innocent local residents who strayed close to the Line of Control while collecting herbs. Local residents say the men could also have been out poaching musk-deer, a common-if illegal activity. Intelligence officials based in Jammu and Kashmir had earlier told Firstpost that there was reason to believe the four men had been kidnapped in a cross-border operation, targettng individuals helping cross-border infiltrators.

The alleged kidnapping took place in the midst of a series of sweeps targeting groups of jihadists who had made their way across the Line of Control into the Hafruda forests above the north Kashmir town of Kupwara. In the last week of July alone, twelve jihadists were killed in northern Kashmir’s Kupwara district–levels of infiltration not seen in years. Five terrorists were killed short of Hema Post, on the Line of Control in Kupwara. The infiltration surge, as Firstpost recently revealed, has led to the first uptick in violence levels through Jammu and Kashmir since the near-war of 2001-2002.

New Delhi has so far offered no official comment on the controversy, while Jammu and Kashmir Director-General of Police Ashok Prasad will be probed only if the government orders an investigation.

Fighting between the two armies continues along the Line of Control, with both sides trading small-arms fire at Kamalkot, near Uri, last night and this morning. Two Pakistani soldiers are reported to have been injured in the latest exchanges.

Low-grade skirmishes have broken out regularly since January, when Pakistani troops beheaded two Indian soldiers, Lance-Naik Hem Raj and Lance-Naik Sudhakar Naik, in an ambush.

Later, in February, Pakistan alleged that one of its soldiers had been executed in cold blood after accidentally straying across the Line of Control and being taken prisoner. India, however, disputed this version of events.

“We detected some suspicious movement near the LoC inside our territory and the challengers from our side fired”, said Lieutenant-Colonel Rajesh Kalia, a spokesperson for the Indian army.

Late last month, Pakistan complained that “unprovoked” Indian fire had led to the death of Sepoy Asim Iqbal in the Nazia Peer sector, near the town of Rawlakote. India, however, said the firing began in response to an infiltration attempt.

Experts say the fighting is driven by both sides jockeying for tactical advantage along the Line of Control-a process in turn underpinned by the need of Indian troops to dominate possible infiltration routes, and the Pakistan army’s efforts to deny them those vantage positions.

Last year, in October, an escalatory spiral developed when Pakistan complained of new Indian border works at Charunda, in Uri. India responded that the works were purely defensive, intended to prevent illegal border crossings–among them, one of an elderly villager who left Charunda to be with her sons across the Line of Control. The unresolved dispute led to exchanges of fire, which eventually escalated into shelling and the killings of soldiers on both sides.

The November 2003 ceasefire, Indian diplomatic sources say, was based on an unwritten “agreement,” which in essence stipulated that neither side would reinforce its fortifications along the Line of Control –a measure first agreed to after the 1971 war. In 2006, the two sides exchanged drafts for a formal agreement–but the talks have stalled.

he was actually pointing to the involvement of the elite Special Services Group (SSG).

What nonsense. The SSG is not deployed along the LOC, they are nowhere near it.

Army sources, in fact, said the well-planned, military-style ambush of the soldiers around 450 metres inside Indian territory was probably the handiwork of the " Musa company" of the Pakistan army's SSG, which consists of special forces commandos trained for covert and irregular missions behind enemy lines, in conjunction with terrorists.

At-least the journalist should have gotten his facts straight. Musa Company specializes in amphibious operations along Punjab's canals and wetland, they are not deployed in LOC.

The SSG commandos, or the "black storks" as they are called due to their uniform colour, are said to have made daring raids on Indian Army positions during the 1971 war even as the Pakistan army was thrashed by Indian forces. The SSG commandos were also among the first batches of intruders which crossed the LoC into Kargil in 1999 to establish fortified positions in the icy heights that finally led to an armed conflict between the two countries.

No they don't, this was abandoned long ago. Only Zarrar Company operatives whom specialize in counter terrorism wear black uniform under very specialized missions. This is the regular camouflage of the SSG.

In the aftermath of yet another Pakistani transgression, we are back to the tired old arguments about whether or not India should be talking to Pakistan. Proponents argue that nothing has been gained whenever India stopped talking to Pakistan, as it did after every major provocation. Their opponents argue that dialogue has not stopped Pakistan's provocations.

Both sides are right and therein lies the simple truth that New Delhi refuses to acknowledge: dialogue or the lack of it has little impact on Pakistan. The reason Pakistan continues to provoke is that India has eschewed any retaliation for fear of nuclear escalation. Because Pakistan does not fear Indian retaliation, India's deterrence is dead. To prevent Pakistani provocations, India needs to resurrect its deterrence and that requires considering using military force.

Pakistan's nuclearisation has ended India's ability to deter Islamabad from provocations. Consequently, Pakistan has provided unprecedented levels of support to terrorist groups, which includes not only terrorist attacks in India but also against the Indian mission in Afghanistan.

Fearing nuclear escalation, both the BJP and the UPA governments have limited their responses to diplomatic protests and calling off dialogue. These are ineffectual responses that only serve to illustrate Indian helplessness. Pakistan knows that India will eventually have to return to talks.

Strategic Stupidity

It is not as if Indian leadership has been unaware of the problem. After Kargil, then defence minister George Fernandes and army chief General VP Malik suggested that India could explore limited conventional war options that would punish Pakistan without risking escalation.

Unfortunately that idea has not been pursued. After Operation Parakram, the Indian Army proposed a "cold start" doctrine. It was a plan for faster mobilisation because one lesson of Operation Parakram was that Indian military mobilisation took very long, which allowed international pressure and strategic secondguessing to undermine the Indian leadership's will to order a military retaliation. But Cold Start envisaged a much larger war and it might not be an appropriate response for anything but a catastrophic terrorist attack.

Also, Pakistan's introduction of short-range tactical nuclear weapons has increased New Delhi's apprehensions. In any case, at least formally, the Indian Army has discarded Cold Start.

Indian leaders have further undermined our deterrence by repeatedly proclaiming that they do not want war. This is the one point on which there is consensus in New Delhi but consensus is not wisdom. Even if war is not an option, taking it off the table is the height of strategic stupidity. As long as India is unable to threaten Pakistan with military retaliation, Pakistan has little incentive to stop supporting terrorist actions against India. Diplomacy provides few useful responses.

Stopping the dialogue is a shortterm measure that will not deter Pakistan. Seeking international support is equally useless because even if the other powers support India diplomatically — which itself is a mighty big if considering Pakistan's talent for leveraging its strategic location — it will have little impact on Pakistan, as they have repeatedly demonstrated. Diplomacy can aid military power but it cannot replace it.

Retaliatory Option

India needs to consider all of its options, including the use of force. While force should not be the first option for all problems, force has to be an option at least in responding to attacks. The fear that any military operation would automatically result in nuclear escalation is halfbaked wisdom from a superficial reading of Cold War history.

The nuclear relationship between Washington and Moscow was very different because both sides deployed nuclear weapons on a hairtrigger, which meant that the slightest disturbance had the potential to set off a nuclear conflagration.

That is not the situation in South Asia where neither side deploys ready-to-use nuclear weapons. Pakistan refuses to join India in adopting a no-first-use of nuclear weapons pledge, which is understandable, given their inferiority in conventional military strength.

But this is taken as an indication of Pakistan's irrationality, which only strengthens Pakistan's deterrence because it effectively paralyses the Indian leadership.

Pakistan might have a first-use doctrine but it is first-use as last resort, much as Israel keeps nuclear weapons to ensure its survival. First use does not mean Pakistan will lob nuclear bombs as soon as the first Indian soldier crosses the border. As long as Indian action does not threaten the survival of the Pakistani state, it is unlikely that Pakistan will reach for nuclear weapons.

India does have the option of engaging in limited military retaliation, especially in PoK. Civilian and military leaders need to jointly reconsider the Fernandes-Malik proposals so that military retaliatory options are available to deter Pakistan and, if deterrence fails, to respond to Pakistan's provocations.

Without it, we will be condemned to repeat the facile dialogue-no dialogue debate after the next provocation, which is surely coming.

Oracle

09 Aug 13,, 05:30

Found a small clip on how the engagement goes on the LoC.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FVxQpk76I8

Firestorm

09 Aug 13,, 16:42

I guess I'm not the only one who thinks our current Pakistan policy of turning the other cheek is moronic.

In a joint statement issued on Friday, 40 retired Indian military, intelligence and civilian chiefs have called for a halt in talks with Pakistan.

“The government would be well advised not to rush into a dialogue with Pakistan on the assumption that the new PM of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif is ostensibly committed to improving ties with India.”

Among those who have signed the statement are two former Army chiefs General Shankar Roy Chowdhury and General NC Vij.

Speaking at a press conference, former deputy NSA Satish Chandra said, “the policy of appeasement has failed; India needs a new bipartisan policy which will impose costs on Pakistan for terrorism.”

Chandra further said that imposing such costs will deter Pakistan. “There is no need to be afraid of nuclear blackmail, India is a nuclear power too,” he added.

Former Navy Vice Chief, Vice Admiral KK Nayyar also agreed that India needed a new Pakistan policy, saying “severe costs can be imposed on Pakistan without doing what Pakistan does in India – terrorism.”

Former Chief of Army Staff General NC Vij said a low level war on LoC is a ‘purposeful Pakistani strategy’ that can be sustained indefinitely.

“Pakistan is a rational actor; they will not risk nuclear escalation. This nuclear bluff should be called by India.” The answer is for India to raise the stakes, Vij said.

Also present at the press conference was former High Commissioner to Pakistan G Parthasarathy who said Indo-Pak talks at the bureaucratic and military levels could continue but India needs to think hard how to challenge Pakistan’s strategy.

“Eating kebabs and biryani and listening to music is fine but India needs hard headed thinking about how to challenge Pakistani strategy of stoking internal tension in India.”

Former Intelligence Bureau director Ajit Doval also slammed Pakistan for its failure to hand over fugitives. “Pakistan’s failure to hand over terror and organised crime fugitives indicates its intentions,” he said.

Among those who have signed the statement are two former Army chiefs General Shankar Roy Chowdhury and General NC Vij, former Air chief Marshal S Krishnaswamy, Navy vice chief vice admiral KK Nayyar, former secretaries R&AW AK Verma and CD Sahay, former IB director Ajit Doval, former Home Secretaries Anil Baijal and Dhirendra Singh, Former Foreign secretaries MK Rasgotra and Kanwal Sibal, former MEA secretary JC Sharma.

Here is the actual statement: http://www.scribd.com/doc/159096674/Statement-on-Indo-Pak-Relations

Defence Minister A.K. Antony’s weak-kneed statement in parliament on the killing of five Indian soldiers on Indian territory by the Pakistani army and its terrorist-cohorts is entirely in consonance with the UPA government’s effete policy on Pakistan.

This policy is encapsulated in the puerile argument frequently advanced by Congress Rajya Sabha MP Mani Shankar Aiyar that dialogue with Pakistan must be “uninterrupted and uninterruptible”. Such carte blanche emboldens a rogue state like Pakistan to launch terrorist attacks on India with impunity and then quickly disown them to pressurise a supine Congress leadership to resume talks – on Pakistan’s terms.

But, argue Congress leaders, not talking to Pakistan is counter-productive. They are wrong. Ceasing a dialogue till specific conditions are met can be very productive if the strategy is applied judiciously. Examples abound.

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden was granted only limited one-year asylum by Russia after the United States threatened to cancel President Barack Obama’s G-20 summit meeting in Russia with President Vladmir Putin scheduled for September. Obama will attend the summit but a one-on-one with Putin is unlikely. (Update: AP reported shortly after this story was posted that Obama has formally cancelled his one-on-one meeting with Putin to show US anger over Snowden being granted asylum in Russia.)

If five US soldiers had been killed by a foreign state on US soil, the consequences would have been swift and lethal. The same applies to Israel – a country surrounded by hostile Arab neighbours who hesitate to attack it for fear of immediate and heavy retribution.

India cannot unconditionally extend its hand in friendship to a Pakistan which holds a dagger behind its back. As former Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah, hardly an anti-Pakistan hawk, warned recently: “There will come a time when we will not be able to hold our army back because of strong public opinion.”

Pakistan-apologists – and there are many to be found in Delhi’s Byzantine corridors – say India has only two choices in dealing with Pakistani terrorism: talk or war. This, of course, is nonsense. As I wrote in my article, Make Pakistan Pay (10 January 2013), there are at least three intermediate options.

1. Diplomatic. We can downgrade Pakistan to consular status, allowing its embassy limited diplomatic functionality till Rawalpindi GHQ delivers on 26/11 and the other terrorist-criminal acts it has perpetrated on India. Pakistan posseses whatever international credibility it has by being associated with India. Downgrade that relationship and you downgrade Pakistan internationally.

2. Economic: As with diplomatic relations, Pakistan needs India. India doesn’t need Pakistan. Pakistan’s GDP is barely 12% of India’s and growing at less than 2% a year. India’s trade volume (the sum of its global exports and imports) is $800 billion and dwarfs Pakistan’s. Make trade ties conditional to Pakistan delivering on terrorism.

3. Legal: India is unduly sensitive about “internationalising” its conflict with Pakistan. It should instead make it clear to the world that Pakistan’s repeated bluff about holding a plebiscite over Kashmir’s disputed status is just that – bluff. All the 1948 UNSC resolutions Pakistan constantly refers to – and wilfully distorts – actually demand that Pakistan vacate PoK before a plebiscite can even be considered in Jammu & Kashmir.

You can’t change your neighbours. But you can change their behaviour. The United States showed how to do it with Mexico’s drug mafia, once supported by Mexico’s government. Israel has shown how to do it with its hostile Arab neighbours. So can India.

Pakistan craves equivalence with India. It recognises it can’t claim parity economically, militarily or diplomatically. The only way it can do so is to engage India in a permanent “dispute”. Rawalpindi knows that India, with its myriad governance problems, forgets and forgives easily: it’s a matter of weeks before it’s “business as usual”. The Indian government doesn’t have the stomach for a sustained battle of attrition. Hence Pakistan’s rehearsed script: atrocity, denial, posturing, engagement.

Since 1967, despite a serious border dispute, the Line of Actual Control (LAC) between China and India has been largely peaceful with no casualties on either side. The Chinese may have been perfidious in helping Pakistan clandestinely develop the nuclear bomb and themselves occupying 1,942 sq km of sovereign Indian territory in Northern Kashmir and Ladakh. But Beijing does not send gangs of terrorists to maim and murder Indian soldiers. On that score, Pakistan stands in solitary disgrace.

* * *

In an earlier piece, When will India stop being a soft terror target? (10 September 2011), I wrote: "Successful counter-terrorism requires three ingredients: political determination to end terrorism regardless of political (i.e. electoral) consequences; two, professional policing independent of government interference; and three, high-quality intelligence gathering. The last two are dependent on the first. Without good political intent, terrorism cannot be defeated."

Double Edge

10 Aug 13,, 14:20

4 Days minimum. 2 Days to get a choherant battle picture. 1 Day to decide. 1 Day to mate warheads to delivery vehicles.
This means that even a week of hostilities would be optimistic. Moment the rumbling starts the Americans & Russians lean on India and the Americans & Chinese lean on Pakistan.

Result is south asia region is stable.

Deterrence alone isn't enough to keep the peace it takes the active involvement of the P5 as well. This is the formula for dealing with middling nuke powers.

People who go on about weak Indian politicians do not take into account the threats external actors could impose on India. I fail to see the upsides for India in a conflict with Pakistan. And the Paks can't get much out of India other than to internationalise their interests.

troung

11 Aug 13,, 02:25

1. Diplomatic. We can downgrade Pakistan to consular status, allowing its embassy limited diplomatic functionality till Rawalpindi GHQ delivers on 26/11 and the other terrorist-criminal acts it has perpetrated on India. Pakistan posseses whatever international credibility it has by being associated with India. Downgrade that relationship and you downgrade Pakistan internationally.

That's as limp wristed as writing their name with a smaller character - like China did with the Mongol raiders.

3. Legal: India is unduly sensitive about “internationalising” its conflict with Pakistan. It should instead make it clear to the world that Pakistan’s repeated bluff about holding a plebiscite over Kashmir’s disputed status is just that – bluff. All the 1948 UNSC resolutions Pakistan constantly refers to – and wilfully distorts – actually demand that Pakistan vacate PoK before a plebiscite can even be considered in Jammu & Kashmir.

Then logically India would have to vacate as well.

Tronic

11 Aug 13,, 03:00

Since you left it out, let me also address the second point:

2. Economic: As with diplomatic relations, Pakistan needs India. India doesn’t need Pakistan. Pakistan’s GDP is barely 12% of India’s and growing at less than 2% a year. India’s trade volume (the sum of its global exports and imports) is $800 billion and dwarfs Pakistan’s. Make trade ties conditional to Pakistan delivering on terrorism.

India places 9th on the list of Pakistan's top 10 trading partners. India-Pakistan trade is only worth $2.4 billion. Pakistan exports around $500 million worth of goods, while importing more than $1.8 billion from India. This makes them at a trade deficit.

To say downgrading trade ties with Pakistan will hurt them is a laughable joke.

Officer of Engineers

11 Aug 13,, 04:46

This means that even a week of hostilities would be optimistic. Moment the rumbling starts the Americans & Russians lean on India and the Americans & Chinese lean on Pakistan.DE, I seriously have a question. Why did you wait for me to tell you the obvious? You have been following me for years. This should have been obvious.

Yes, Hitesh, aka Blademaster, it should have been obvious to you as well.

anil

11 Aug 13,, 17:01

People who go on about weak Indian politicians do not take into account the threats external actors could impose on India.
You mean the one's who didn't follow the cold war http://www.worldaffairsboard.com/images/darksmiles/tongue.gif

Result is south asia region is stable
It brings anything but peace. Neither is it going to remain within south asia because thus is the nature of internecine war.

farhan_9909

12 Aug 13,, 11:11

In the end a Kashmiri civilian lost his life.

The armed forces should rather keep the revenge limited to soldiers than killing innocent civilians

MUZZAFFARABAD: Pakistan accused India on Monday of killing a civilian with “unprovoked firing” in Kashmir in the latest in a series of recent clashes in the disputed Himalayan region.
Tensions have flared again in the heavily militarised Kashmir valley with the nuclear-armed neighbours accusing each other of cross-border firing.
The latest incident took place when “Indian troops resorted to unprovoked firing in the wee hours Monday” in three areas along the de facto border known as the Line of Control (LoC), a military official said.
“Pakistani troops effectively responded to Indian firing,” he said, adding that one civilian was killed “due to unprovoked Indian shelling”.
The prime minister of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, Chaudhry Abdul Majeed, led a 400-strong protest march to the UN observer mission in Muzaffarabad to demand action to restore peace.
“It is responsibility of the UN observer mission to keep peace in Kashmir,” he told protesters.
“They should fulfil their responsibility by playing a role to stop shelling from India and restore calm in the valley.”
Indian Defence Minister A K Antony on Thursday hinted at stronger military action along the LoC after Delhi accused Pakistan’s army of involvement in a deadly overnight ambush that killed five Indian soldiers last Monday.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif tried to ease tensions with India by urging both sides to work swiftly to shore up a 10-year ceasefire threatened by the recent attacks.
On Sunday, Pakistan accused India of firing on border posts in Kashmir and neighbouring Punjab province.
The picturesque Himalayan territory of Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan by the UN-monitored LoC, but is claimed in full by both countries.
A deadly flare-up along the LoC in January brought peace talks to a halt.
They had only just resumed after a three-year hiatus sparked by the 2008 attacks in Mumbai that killed 166 people. India blamed Pakistani militants for the attack.
More than a dozen armed groups have been fighting Indian forces since 1989, demanding independence for Kashmir or its merger with Pakistan.
India and Pakistan have fought three wars since their independence from Britain in 1947, two of them over Kashmir

lemontree

13 Aug 13,, 05:07

By the looks of it, things are going to get very nasty on the LOC.
Army has free hand to counter Pak: Antony - The Times of India (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Army-has-free-hand-to-counter-Pak-Antony/articleshow/21792739.cms)

There will be no declaration of war, but the LOC is going to get very, very active.

Doktor

13 Aug 13,, 09:38

Captain,

I believe you are somewhere near the LOC.

Stay safe.

notorious_eagle

13 Aug 13,, 13:28

SRINAGAR: India and Pakistan have again accused each other of firing across the Line of Control (LoC), the latest development in a series of allegations of cross-border attacks made by both sides.

An Indian army commander on Tuesday accused Pakistani troops of firing intermittently through the night on the Mendhar sector of the border, 180 kilometres southwest of Srinagar, the main city in Indian-administered Kashmir.

An AFP report quoted the Indian army as saying in a statement that Pakistani soldiers started firing at Indian posts in Mendhar district late on Monday and about an hour later in the Balakot area of Poonch sector, with the firing continuing until about 6am Tuesday.

“Pakistani soldiers used small arms, machine guns and mortars. We gave a calibrated response,” an army officer said separately, on condition of anonymity.

Moreover, the website of Indian newspaper The Hindu quoted, in a Press Trust of India report, an Indian Border Security Force (BSF) official as anonymously saying that “there was firing by Pakistani Rangers on Narianpur Border Out Post (BoP) in Ramgarh forward area in Samba district around 0730 hours”.

The official further claimed that firing came from Ashraf post of Pakistan, according to the report.

Meanwhile, a Pakistani military official accused Indian troops of firing late Monday at Pakistani military posts, according to an AP report. This official too requested anonymity.

Tensions have flared in the Kashmir valley since the ambush and killing last week of five Indian soldiers in the Poonch sector, which India blamed on Pakistani soldiers.

The ambush sparked a series of cross-border skirmishes which the rival neighbours blamed on one another.

Pakistan accused India of killing a civilian during firing on Monday and summoned its envoy in Islamabad to register a protest.

Last week's ambush was the deadliest such incident along the LoC since the two countries agreed to a ceasefire in 2003. Pakistan denied its soldiers were involved in the attack.

Indian Defence Minister A K Antony last week hinted at stronger military action along the LoC in the wake of the ambush.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has been vocal in his desire for better relations with India since his election in May, but the recent flare-ups have tested the resolve for peace on both sides.

The picturesque Himalayan territory is divided between India and Pakistan by the UN-monitored LoC, but both countries claim it in full.

A dozen militant groups have also been fighting Indian forces since 1989 for the independence of the disputed territory or for its merger with Pakistan.

Although violence has abated during the last decade, the fighting has left tens of thousands of people, mostly civilians, dead.

Are we expecting things to escalate after the U.S. withdraws from Afghanistan?

Pakistan-based militants are preparing to take on India across the subcontinent once Western troops leave Afghanistan next year, several sources say, raising the risk of a dramatic spike in tensions between nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan.

Intelligence sources in India believe that a botched suicide bombing of an Indian consulate in Afghanistan, which was followed within days last week by a lethal cross-border ambush on Indian soldiers in disputed Kashmir, suggest that the new campaign by Islamic militants may already be underway.

Members of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militant outfit in Pakistan, the group blamed for the 2008 commando-style raid on Mumbai that killed 166 people, told Reuters they were preparing to take the fight to India once again, this time across the region.

And a U.S. counter-terrorism official, referring to the attack in Afghanistan, said "LeT has long pursued Indian targets, so it would be natural for the group to plot against them in its own backyard".

Given the quiet backing - or at least blind eye - that many militant groups enjoy from Pakistan's shadowy intelligence services, tensions from a new militant campaign are bound to spill over. Adding to the volatility, the two nations' armies are trading mortar and gunfire across the heavily militarized frontier that divides Kashmir, and accusing each other of killing troops.

Hindu-majority India and Islamic Pakistan have fought three wars since independence in 1947 and came close to a fourth in 1999. The tension now brewing may not escalate into open hostilities, but it could thwart efforts to forge a lasting peace and open trade between two countries that make up a quarter of the world's population.

"With the Americans leaving Afghanistan, the restraint on the Pakistani security/jihadi establishment is going too," said a former top official at India's Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), the external intelligence arm.

"We are concerned about 2014 in either scenario. If the jihadis (Islamist militants) claim success in Afghanistan, they could turn their attention to us. Equally, if they fail, they will attack in wrath."

But Pakistan, which has a border with India to the east and with Afghanistan to the west, has concerns of its own. It sees India's expansive diplomacy in Afghanistan as a ploy to disrupt it from the rear as it battles its own deadly Islamist militancy and separatist forces. Vying for influence in a post-2014 Afghanistan, it worries about India's assistance to the Afghan army, heightening a sense of encirclement.

"I'm shocked by these allegations. Pakistan has its own insurgency to deal with. It has no appetite for confrontations abroad," said a Pakistani foreign ministry official referring to the Indian charges of stirring trouble in Afghanistan and on the Kashmir border.

"If anything, we are looking at our mistakes from the past very critically. These accusations are baseless. India needs to act with more maturity and avoid this sort of propaganda."

Both U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden and Secretary of State John Kerry spoke during visits to India recently of the need for New Delhi and Islamabad to resume their stalled peace process as the region heads into a period of uncertainty.

FULL-SCALE JIHAD

At the core of that uncertainty is the pullback of militants from Afghanistan as U.S. forces head home.

Hafiz Sayeed, founder of the LeT, has left no doubt that India's side of Kashmir will become a target, telling an Indian weekly recently: "Full-scale armed Jihad (holy war) will begin soon in Kashmir after American forces withdraw from Afghanistan."

The retreat of Soviet forces from Afghanistan in 1989 brought a wave of guerrillas into Kashmir to fight India's rule there.

This time the additional risk will be the rivalry between India and Pakistan over Afghanistan itself, one that threatens to become as toxic as the 60-year dispute in Kashmir. The LeT has said it is fighting Indian forces in Afghanistan as well.

A senior LeT source in Pakistan told Reuters: "It is correct that the LeT cooperates with the Afghan Taliban (insurgents) when there is a question of attacking Indian interests."

Tensions between India and Pakistan escalated last week after five Indian soldiers were killed close to the de facto border in Kashmir. India says Pakistani special forces joined militants to ambush a night patrol, a charge Pakistan denies.

Just days earlier, three men drove an explosives-laden car towards India's consulate in the Afghan city of Jalalabad, near the border with Pakistan. The blast missed its target and killed nine civilians, six of them young Islamic scholars in a mosque.

It is too early to say conclusively who was behind these and other attacks, but Indian and Afghan officials see in them the handiwork of the LeT and its allies. Such groups have doubled their attempts to cross into Indian-controlled Kashmir this year, according to Indian defense ministry statistics.

The result has been the first increase in Kashmir militant violence since a 2003 ceasefire on the border, which led to a decline in attacks, partly because Pakistan and the jihadi groups were preoccupied with Afghanistan during this time.

In the first eight months of this year, 103 casualties in militant-related violence were recorded in Indian Kashmir, compared to 57 in the same period of 2012, according to the South Asia Terrorism Portal, a think tank.

$10 MILLION BOUNTY

LeT was founded in 1990 in eastern Afghanistan by Sayeed, a Pakistani Islamic scholar whom India accuses of masterminding the rampage in Mumbai. The United States placed a $10 million bounty on his head for his alleged role in the attack, but he remains a free man in Pakistan, where he preached to thousands last week.

Although the group has global ambitions, LeT's primary aim is to end India's rule in Muslim-majority Kashmir. India and Pakistan each control a part of the heavily militarized land of lakes and orchards once known as "paradise on earth" and both assert claims over the whole Himalayan territory.

LeT has been working this year with several other Islamist outfits to train and push more Pakistani militants over the heavily guarded border into India's side, a veteran LeT fighter told Reuters in Pakistan.

"Jihad is being stimulated and various militant outfits are cooperating with each other under the platform of the United Jihad Council," said the veteran, referring to an umbrella body.

Pakistan's new prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, came to power in May vowing to improve ties with India and - until last week's flare-up along the Kashmir border - the two sides looked set to resume talks. Their prime ministers were planning to meet on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York next month.

The trouble is, says a retired senior Pakistani diplomat, there are "spoilers" on both sides who are not interested in seeing a rapprochement. In Pakistan, these include the militant groups, which he said operate independently.

"They don't seem to be able to control other non-government actors like the LeT. So that's the biggest worry," he said.

The Pakistan military's refusal to dismantle groups such as LeT infuriates New Delhi and fuels hawkish demands for the kind of tough action that would risk escalation.

The senior LeT source in Pakistan denied the group was involved in the failed consulate strike in Afghanistan, but officials in New Delhi - citing intelligence intercepts - said they had been forewarned about LeT-trained hit squads plotting the attack.

"Jalalabad was a message from the ISI in a long line of such messages," said an Indian intelligence official, referring to Pakistan's spy agency, the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI).

TIGHT SECURITY

Further east, on the line dividing Kashmir between Pakistan and India, ceasefire violations are up 80 percent compared to last year, according to India. On Friday night, the two armies exchanged 7,000 rounds of mortar and gunfire, according to Indian media.

Anti-Indian sentiment in Kashmir provides fertile ground for groups seeking to revive the militancy that roiled the region through the 1990s, but New Delhi has two things in its favor.

First, despite the uptick, violence in the state is still close to the record low it reached last year. Second, the Indian army has to a large extent sealed the rugged, fenced and land-mined border that divides Kashmir, leaving militants with a critically small number of cadres and weapons.

"We cannot send jihadists into India in big numbers like in the past because of tight security at the Indian side," the LeT source in Pakistan said.

Speaking on the lawn of his official bungalow in the restive Indian town of Baramulla, J.P. Singh, the police chief for northern border operations, told Reuters the army and police had stopped most attempted militant crossings this year.

Still, India is preparing for an influx.

"(Pakistan's) agents and their protégés, the militants, are getting disengaged from the Afghan border and they have nowhere else to keep them and engage them, other than to push them to Kashmir," Singh said. "Their presence inside Pakistan is dangerous for the internal security of Pakistan."

Are we expecting things to escalate after the U.S. withdraws from Afghanistan?

That's expected... This summer has already seen a huge spike in infiltration attempts from across the LoC; along with the PA being more trigger friendly than usual. As the Afghan conflict cools down, PA will start diverting their excess militants from the Afghan theatre and attempt to push them into Kashmir.

lemontree

14 Aug 13,, 06:53

Originally Posted by Doktor
Captain,

I believe you are somewhere near the LOC.

Stay safe

I thought the good Captain has retired. :confused:

Guys I'm not serving any more. I'm a civilian now.

lemontree

14 Aug 13,, 06:56

Are we expecting things to escalate after the U.S. withdraws from Afghanistan?

Things may escalate in Afghanistan, but not in Indian Kashmir.
Reasons for that are in the nature of the stakeholders. I'll open a thread specific to this issue and start a debate on it.

Doktor

14 Aug 13,, 07:32

Guys I'm not serving any more. I'm a civilian now.

Mea culpa.

Doktor

14 Aug 13,, 08:39

Captain said the things will escalate in the following period in J&K.

There are reports for skirmishes with dead on both sides. Is it generic increasing, or biz as usual, only with more media hype?

JAMMU: Violating the ceasefire for the ninth time in the past four days, Pakistani troops targeted 16 Indian forward posts and civilian areas along the Line of Control in Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir resulting in heavy exchanges.

"Pakistani troops fired on Indian posts along the LoC in Hamirpur-Balakote and Mendhar forward areas in Poonch district last night" defence spokesman SN Acharya said on Wednesday.

The troops from across the border fired small arms and automatic weapons besides mortar and RPGs from 2100 hours hours last night, the spokesman said.

Indian troops guarding the borderline fired back resulting in heavy exchanges till 2215 hours, Acharya said, adding there was no loss of life or injury to anyone in the firing from Pakistan.

The firing continued intermittently today. Pakistan targeted 16 Indian forward posts in Hamirpur, Balakote and Mankote forward areas in Poonch throughout the night. Pakistan fired at six posts each in Balakote and Hamirpur areas and four in Mankote belt.

Eight posts manned by the troops of 605 Mujahid Regiment troops of Pakistan Army, were involved in the firing on Indian posts.

This is the ninth ceasefire violation by Pakistan in the past four days, security official said.

Pakistani Rangers had yesterday violated the ceasefire and fired at Narianpur Border Out Post (BoP) in Ramgarh forward area in Samba district.

Pakistani troops had fired at Indian posts along LoC in Hamirpur and Balakote forward areas in Mendhar sub-sector of Poonch district at 9.20 PM last night. The firing continued till 6 AM today, Defence Spokesman S N Acharya said.

Pakistani Rangers had also fired small arms on Kothay Border Out Post along IB in Samba district at 1930 hours yesterday, a BSF officer said.

SRINAGAR: Army on Wednesday foiled an infiltration bid along the Line of Control in Kupwara district of Jammu and Kashmir, killing two militants.

"Alert troops noticed movement of heavily armed militants close to the Line of Control in Keran Sector of Kupwara at around 3.00am. The militants were challenged, triggering a gun battle," a defence spokesman said.

He said two infiltrators were killed in the exchange of fire between the two sides.

"The operation was in progress when last reports were received," he said.

Infiltration attempts from across the LoC have been on the rise since the beginning of July and so far over 16 militants have been eliminated in operations along the ceasefire line in the past six weeks.

lemontree

14 Aug 13,, 12:10

What nonsense. The SSG is not deployed along the LOC, they are nowhere near it.
Special Forces units are never deployed on the LOC. An SF unit is under the Corps HQ, in this case the SF unit would be under your X Corps based in Rawilpindi. A team comes from its base location, carries out an operation then goes back.

At-least the journalist should have gotten his facts straight. Musa Company specializes in amphibious operations along Punjab's canals and wetland, they are not deployed in LOC.
You will have to excuse journalists, who are at a loss for information, and get half backed info from the internet.

No they don't, this was abandoned long ago. Only Zarrar Company operatives whom specialize in counter terrorism wear black uniform under very specialized missions. This is the regular camouflage of the SSG.
A lot of units use black overalls for covert ops on the LOC, it helps them mask the true identity of their actual unit.

notorious_eagle

14 Aug 13,, 13:05

One civilian was killed and a child was injured in ‘unprovoked firing’ by the Indian Army in Battal Sector across the Line of Control (LoC) Wednesday morning, Express News reported.
Tensions have flared in the Kashmir valley since the ambush and killing last week of five Indian soldiers in the Poonch sector, which India blamed on the Pakistani army.
The ambush sparked a series of cross-border skirmishes which the rival neighbours blamed on each other.
Pakistan accused India of killing a civilian during firing on Monday and summoned its envoy in Islamabad to register a protest.
Last week’s ambush was the deadliest such incident along the LoC since the two countries agreed to a ceasefire in 2003.
Pakistan denied its soldiers were involved in the attack.
Despite ongoing cross-border incidents, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif called for a “new beginning” in relations with India amid high tension over the disputed region of Kashmir.

AZAD KASHMIR: Unprovoked mortar shelling from the Indian army injured three civilians in the Nakyal Sector of Kotli, Express News reported on Thursday.
Mortar shelling on a house injured two civilians inside and damaged the house.
Tension between the two countries was set off by a series of unprovoked cross-border violations. Pakistan denies the allegations of attacking Indian soldiers.
Pakistan’s military officials accused Indian forces of opening fire and seriously injuring a Pakistani civilian in the Tatta Pani sector along the Line of Control (LoC) on August 8.
Pakistan’s National Assembly passed a resolution denouncing the “unprovoked Indian aggression on the Line of Control (LoC)”, mob attack on Pakistan’s diplomatic mission in New Delhi, demonstrations outside the PIA offices, prevention of the Dosti bus in Amritsar, and “vilification of Pakistan in the Indian media”.
On Wednesday, the Lok Sabha passed a resolution asserting that the entire state of Jammu and Kashmir “including the territory under occupation of Pakistan is and shall always be an integral part of India”.

Mortar shelling by Indian army injures 3, damages home in Kotli – The Express Tribune (http://tribune.com.pk/story/590542/mortar-shelling-by-indian-army-injures-one-woman-in-kotli/)

Three jawans, civilian injured in unprovoked Pak firing along LoC

JAMMU: Pakistani troops resorted to unprovoked and indiscriminate firing amid rocket and mortar shell attacks on LoC posts injuring three Army jawans and a civilian in Poonch sector of Jammu and Kashmir.

This is the 11th ceasefire violation in past five days, Army officials said on Thursday.

Pakistani troops opened fire along LoC on several Indian forward posts in Balakote belt of Poonch district from 0630 hours, the officials said.

They fired automatic weapons, rockets and mortar shells in which three jawans received minor injury. They have shifted to hospital.

A shell of 82-mm mortar fired by Pakistan troops fell in Sanjote forward area of Mendhar tehsil resulting in injury to Parvaiz, a civilian, who was shifted to GMC hospital in Jammu.

A rocket fired by Pakistani troops fell and exploded on a cowshed in Basonia village of Mendhar on Thursday afternoon resulting in death of a dozen cattle.

Defence spokesman, Jammu, S N Acharya said in a official release that Pakistan army started unprovoked firing at Indian forward posts in Mendhar sector from 06:30am.

"Own troops retaliated immediately with heavy calibre weapons," he said, adding that the firing was on till late in the afternoon.

There were two ceasefire violations on August 13, when Pak troops targeted Narianpur border outpost along the international border in Samba district and 16 Indian forward posts in Hamirpur, Balakote and Mankote forward areas in Poonch through the night.

Before that, three ceasefire violations had taken place on August 12 when Pakistani troops fired on border outposts and Indian posts along Indo-Pak border in Durga battalion (Poonch), Kothay (Samba) and Hamirpur-Balakote forward areas. In the early hours of the same day, at around 1.40am, Pakistani troops opened heavy fire using mortars, rockets and small arms on 11 Indian forward posts along the LoC in Digwar, Mankote and Durga Battalion areas.

It continued till 7.30am next day, triggering heavy exchanges in Poonch.

There were three incidents of ceasefire violation on August 11 also.

Pak troops, at around 8.30am, 11.30am and 9.50pm, had fired on Alfa Machial border outpost in Jammu, Balakote-Mendhar in Poonch and Durga Battalion in Poonch district respectively.

One Jawan had received bullet injuries in Pak firing at Alfa Machial border outpost, and was referred to AIIMS, Delhi for treatment.

In a similar manner, a BSF head constable Ram Niwas Meena of 200th Battalion was injured in sniper firing on Narainpur border outpost area in Samba district along the international border on August 5.

Meena, who suffered bullet injury in chest, died at AIIMS, New Delhi on August 11.

On August 10, in a major ceasefire violation three days after killing of five Indian jawans in Border Action Team attack, Pakistani troops targeted several Indian posts and fired 7,000 rounds of heavy Pika ammunition and mortar shells during seven hours of firing along the Line of Control (LoC) in Poonch district.

Pakistan troops, in BAT attack on Indian Patrol near Sarla Post along LoC in Poonch district and killed 5 jawans and injured another.

There has also been 57 ceasefire violations by Pakistani troops this year from January 1 to August 5, which is 80% more than the last year during the same corresponding period.

Three jawans, civilian injured in unprovoked Pak firing along LoC - The Times of India (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Three-jawans-civilian-injured-in-unprovoked-Pak-firing-along-LoC/articleshow/21842733.cms?)

Officer of Engineers

15 Aug 13,, 15:11

This saddens me to no end.

This is nothing more than a pissing contest by both sides to see who can inflict the most casualties before the other quits. Both sides are embarked on killing for the sake of killing. Not to hold ground, not to achieve the destruction of a hostile threat. But to kill, just to kill.

A waste of good men for the simple pleasure of bloodletting.

I pray someone with enough sense to put a stop to this. There are many reasons why you would initiate military actions, including punitive actions. But this? This. This.

bolo121

15 Aug 13,, 17:08

There are many reasons why you would initiate military actions, including punitive actions. But this? This. This.

A single sentence that sums up my views on this whole sorry affair.
A terrible waste of good men

Oracle

15 Aug 13,, 17:20

I understand that emotions often led us astray, however if any of my mates were to get this treatment, I guess I'd gang up too.

Officer of Engineers

15 Aug 13,, 17:25

It's the job of leaders to avoid these emotions.

Oracle

15 Aug 13,, 18:43

It's the job of leaders to avoid these emotions.

I don't really concur, but I'm forced to agree.

Sir, any solution you have in mind?

notorious_eagle

15 Aug 13,, 19:19

This saddens me to no end.

This is nothing more than a pissing contest by both sides to see who can inflict the most casualties before the other quits. Both sides are embarked on killing for the sake of killing. Not to hold ground, not to achieve the destruction of a hostile threat. But to kill, just to kill.

A waste of good men for the simple pleasure of bloodletting.

I pray someone with enough sense to put a stop to this. There are many reasons why you would initiate military actions, including punitive actions. But this? This. This.

You are absolutely correct Sir. Its shameful what is happening, there is no specific objective but to inflict casualties on the other side. DGMO's from both sides are expected to talk, lets hope something constructive comes out of it.

payeng

15 Aug 13,, 19:25

A no man land around around the line of control, how is that?

Oracle

15 Aug 13,, 19:26

You are absolutely correct Sir. Its shameful what is happening, there is no specific objective but to inflict casualties on the other side. DGMO's from both sides are expected to talk, lets hope something constructive comes out of it.

Nothing's gonna come out of it. NE, seriously, why doesn't Pakistan nullify terrorism? Against US, against India, against the world as a whole.

Oracle

15 Aug 13,, 19:29

A no man land around around the line of control, how is that?

Real estate ............beckons...............then.

notorious_eagle

15 Aug 13,, 19:52

Nothing's gonna come out of it. NE, seriously, why doesn't Pakistan nullify terrorism? Against US, against India, against the world as a whole.

If only it was that easy, Pakistan itself is the biggest victim of terrorism. If the US with infinite resources could not end terrorism in Afghanistan, what makes you think Pakistan can do that with only a fraction of resources.

Oracle

15 Aug 13,, 20:01

If only it was that easy, Pakistan itself is the biggest victim of terrorism. If the US with infinite resources could not end terrorism in Afghanistan, what makes you think Pakistan can do that with only a fraction of resources.

Dude, please, let us not talk about what US can do, coz' we all know what they can. They can bomb your and my arses back into the stone age. Stop aiding and abetting terrorists. Stop terrorists giving sermons in halls. Shell the god darn terrorist camps in PoK, for a start. If you need resources, we'll be glad to oblige.

I hope it never happens, but one more 9/11, and you'd cease to exist. Frankly, I'd hate that. We need an eye for an eye once a while.

Firestorm

15 Aug 13,, 20:14

I hope it never happens, but one more 9/11, and you'd cease to exist. Frankly, I'd hate that. We need an eye for an eye once a while.

You have extremely unrealistic and fanciful expectations of what the US would do to their major non-NATO ally. The pakistani state does not AFAIK indulge in terrorism against the US. They're only responsible for providing a safe haven to some of those who do. Against India on the other hand, they actively connive with the terrorist groups in their plans. It would be unwise to lump the US and India together when it comes to Pakistan.

If only it was that easy, Pakistan itself is the biggest victim of terrorism.
Of course. Just like a suicide bomber is the biggest victim of his explosion.

Oracle

15 Aug 13,, 20:19

If only it was that easy, Pakistan itself is the biggest victim of terrorism. If the US with infinite resources could not end terrorism in Afghanistan, what makes you think Pakistan can do that with only a fraction of resources.

Revoke your constitution which says Ahmedis are non muslims. Re-write the textbooks which preach anti-Hindu sermons. Get off theocracy for once. What does it take to arrest a terrorist like Hafiz Sayeed?

US with infinite resources has not failed. You're damn lucky, US didn't go nuclear, they could have.

What you want is what you'll get.

Oracle

15 Aug 13,, 20:26

You have extremely unrealistic and fanciful expectations of what the US would do to their major non-NATO ally. The pakistani state does not AFAIK indulge in terrorism against the US. They're only responsible for providing a safe haven to some of those who do. Against India on the other hand, they actively connive with the terrorist groups in their plans. It would be unwise to lump the US and India together when it comes to Pakistan.

They do. Pakistanis really do. Remember the New York failed bomb plot? Pakistan might be an ally now, but how long does it take for the snake to bite you back?

Pakistanis does not indulge in terrorism against the US? What comes in the bloody body bags then?

It's never too late to co-operate with the # 1 country in the world. The world will see......

Firestorm

15 Aug 13,, 20:39

They do. Pakistanis really do. Remember the New York failed bomb plot? Pakistan might be an ally now, but how long does it take for the snake to bite you back?

Pakistanis does not indulge in terrorism against the US? What comes in the bloody body bags then?

Individual pakistanis may indulge in terrorism across the world. Notice I used "Pakistani state" not "Pakistanis". Even if ordinary pakistanis think the US is the great satan, the PA and the GoP know that the US is their lifeline. They will go as far as harboring some of the terrorists, but usually little more. If the price is right, they may even cooperate with the US to kill or capture the terrorists that the US wants, like all those AQ No.2's and 3's that they provided over the years. Osama would have been their trump card, but the Americans located him themselves.
Its not the same with India. Good luck getting them to hand over Dawood Ibrahim, Tiger Memon or even Maulana Masood Azhar.

It's never too late to co-operate with the # 1 country in the world. The world will see......
Co-operate to do what? You need to have the same objectives in order to co-operate.

Officer of Engineers

15 Aug 13,, 21:26

Sir, any solution you have in mind?Nothing military. It has to be a diplomatic solution, even if it's a tempoary one.

Tronic

15 Aug 13,, 22:02

It's interesting to see that according to the Pak media, every single person killed or injured on the Pakistani side in the cross-firing has been a civilian. If it's not all propaganda, then you'd think that they'd clear the civvies out of the firing line. I know it is normal practice on the Indian side to evacuate villages along the LoC once the big guns open up.

Tronic

15 Aug 13,, 22:14

This saddens me to no end.

This is nothing more than a pissing contest by both sides to see who can inflict the most casualties before the other quits. Both sides are embarked on killing for the sake of killing. Not to hold ground, not to achieve the destruction of a hostile threat. But to kill, just to kill.

A waste of good men for the simple pleasure of bloodletting.

I pray someone with enough sense to put a stop to this. There are many reasons why you would initiate military actions, including punitive actions. But this? This. This.

It has to be done sir... even if it is only to keep up the morale of Indian troops. Afterall, how long do you sit and watch insurgents, and the so-called "non-state/rouge" elements, kill your troops in routine cross-border attacks?

While Pakistan may claim that Indian SF troops also conduct operations across the LoC, we know that the flow of insurgents is a one-way route.

antimony

15 Aug 13,, 22:47

I am sick and tired of simple swallowing it all and turning the other cheek. We swallowed it in Kargil, in Kandahar, after the 2001 Parliament attacks, after the 2006 Bombay Train attacks, after 26/11 and many others. They will keep killing our men and we are just supposed to let them??? If this is simple bloodletting then so be it. I have no problem in us gunning as many of them down as possible. Enough of this!:mad:

As Captain LT said, there have been times (very few times) when we have responded in scale and that has stopped them for a while. Its time to scale it up again.

antimony

15 Aug 13,, 22:51

It's interesting to see that according to the Pak media, every single person killed or injured on the Pakistani side in the cross-firing has been a civilian. If it's not all propaganda, then you'd think that they'd clear the civvies out of the firing line. I know it is normal practice on the Indian side to evacuate villages along the LoC once the big guns open up.

There are civilian causalities from the drone attacks too. Guess it can't be helped

antimony

15 Aug 13,, 22:56

Nothing military. It has to be a diplomatic solution, even if it's a tempoary one.

We do not have the political or diplomatic heavyweight leadership to take this up. MS is too weak. I know you have the idea that if India can make herself less of a threat to either China or Pakistan, we can turn them against each other. We do not have the visionary leadership capable of attempting that.

till that time, we have to have a military solution. Else we will continue to bleed

Officer of Engineers

15 Aug 13,, 23:01

till that time, we have to have a military solution. Else we will continue to bleedThat IS your military solution. Who's got the most blood to bleed. Escalation is not an acceptable option which means who's got the most replacement bodies to bring up.

antimony

15 Aug 13,, 23:11

That IS your military solution. Who's got the most blood to bleed. Escalation is not an acceptable option which means who's got the most replacement bodies to bring up.

Col.

When I said we bleed I refer to the terrorist attacks. At least now we are responding.

Q: Why is escalation not an acceptable option? I think we both agree that within a limited time frame of escalation, going nuclear is just a bluff.
A: Because we and our leadership lack the balls. We could have solved this during Kargil, when there was no nuclear option. We did not. We are facing the consequences.

And to answer your other question, we can keep bleeding by the time they run dry.

cdude

15 Aug 13,, 23:25

Col.

When I said we bleed I refer to the terrorist attacks. At least now we are responding.

Q: Why is escalation not an acceptable option? I think we both agree that within a limited time frame of escalation, going nuclear is just a bluff.
A: Because we and our leadership lack the balls. We could have solved this during Kargil, when there was no nuclear option. We did not. We are facing the consequences.

And to answer your other question, we can keep bleeding by the time they run dry.

As a country, if India's goal is to make Pakistan pay, invade them, go all out or not. Be my guest, I got my popcorn ready already.

If India's goal is to achieve something bigger whatever it is, then probably not. Your economy is in disarray, Rupee is at the lowest point in decades. Not a good time to stir things up, IMO.

antimony

16 Aug 13,, 00:17

As a country, if India's goal is to make Pakistan pay, invade them, go all out or not. Be my guest, I got my popcorn ready already.

It is wonderful to see you take pleasure in human suffering. By the way, try cheerios, they are healthier

If India's goal is to achieve something bigger whatever it is, then probably not. Your economy is in disarray, Rupee is at the lowest point in decades. Not a good time to stir things up, IMO.

I am glad to see how much your heart bleeds for us.

notorious_eagle

16 Aug 13,, 00:53

Dude, please, let us not talk about what US can do, coz' we all know what they can. They can bomb your and my arses back into the stone age. Stop aiding and abetting terrorists. Stop terrorists giving sermons in halls. Shell the god darn terrorist camps in PoK, for a start. If you need resources, we'll be glad to oblige.

I hope it never happens, but one more 9/11, and you'd cease to exist. Frankly, I'd hate that. We need an eye for an eye once a while.

Revoke your constitution which says Ahmedis are non muslims. Re-write the textbooks which preach anti-Hindu sermons. Get off theocracy for once. What does it take to arrest a terrorist like Hafiz Sayeed?

US with infinite resources has not failed. You're damn lucky, US didn't go nuclear, they could have.

What you want is what you'll get.

Hahahahaa

Okay Cowboy :biggrin:

Blademaster

16 Aug 13,, 03:03

This saddens me to no end.

This is nothing more than a pissing contest by both sides to see who can inflict the most casualties before the other quits. Both sides are embarked on killing for the sake of killing. Not to hold ground, not to achieve the destruction of a hostile threat. But to kill, just to kill.

A waste of good men for the simple pleasure of bloodletting.

I pray someone with enough sense to put a stop to this. There are many reasons why you would initiate military actions, including punitive actions. But this? This. This.

That is because the InA is prevented from taking punitive action and can only do one thing it can do: Kill the others to make examples. Blame it on the stupid peacenik, MMS.

antimony

16 Aug 13,, 03:24

You are absolutely correct Sir. Its shameful what is happening, there is no specific objective but to inflict casualties on the other side.

You started it

DGMO's from both sides are expected to talk, lets hope something constructive comes out of it.

Of course you do, because as soon as our boys take down our guns, your attack dogs will be back.

lemontree

16 Aug 13,, 05:10

This saddens me to no end.

This is nothing more than a pissing contest by both sides to see who can inflict the most casualties before the other quits. Both sides are embarked on killing for the sake of killing. Not to hold ground, not to achieve the destruction of a hostile threat. But to kill, just to kill.

A waste of good men for the simple pleasure of bloodletting.

I pray someone with enough sense to put a stop to this. There are many reasons why you would initiate military actions, including punitive actions. But this? This. This.

Sir, unfortunately, this is the only option left for Indians, since we do not want to escalate active hostilities.
We are forced to retaliate in the same coin as Pakistani Army dishes out, our units cannot keep silent in the face of unprovoked aggression from the Pak Army.

Speaking to the Pakistanis is futile, their Army rules the country, and the civilain politicians are just lap dogs to show the western world that they are a "democracy" and not a dictatorship.

The jihadis are a proxy used by the Pak Army as extension to carry out attacks in Afghanistan and India. What can you talk with such maniacs!!...they are rabid in their hatred for us. What will satisfy them!!...we cannot surrender our land for their illusions.

Srinagar: The repeated violation of the ceasefire agreement by Pakistani troops in the last few days has also been marked by several infiltration attempts by militants near the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir. In one of the instances, a man, well over 50 years, was among two militants gunned down by security forces.

His age assumes significance as an assessment by the Army has revealed that senior leaders are trying to sneak into the Valley to revive militancy that has seen a significant dip over the past two years in the state.

This is what they did in 80s, the infiltrators were radical Mawlawi / Maulvis who took shelters in mosques to brainwash Muslims.

The Army has foiled several such infiltration bids since the beginning of July. In the past fortnight alone, 15 militants have been killed by the Army while trying to cross into India through the heavily-guarded LoC.

lemontree

16 Aug 13,, 05:17

Your economy is in disarray, Rupee is at the lowest point in decades. Not a good time to stir things up, IMO.
If a beggar country like Pakistan can manage to wage a proxy war, dont you think we can too.
Dont worry about our economy, our basic foundations are far stronger than they are in China.

Besides, we dont have to do much, the Pakistani Army has created a mess in their own country, so they will remain the global cesspool that no one wants to touch.

lemontree

16 Aug 13,, 05:33

It's interesting to see that according to the Pak media, every single person killed or injured on the Pakistani side in the cross-firing has been a civilian. If it's not all propaganda, then you'd think that they'd clear the civvies out of the firing line. I know it is normal practice on the Indian side to evacuate villages along the LoC once the big guns open up.

On the LOC, there is no evacuation till hot war in imminent. That use to happen in the old days, but not anymore as any evacuation is a dead giveaway.
A lot of Pak ex-servicemen are settled in that region and the Mujahid and AK battalions have troops that hail from these POK villages. So they are used as reserves, extra manpower during hostilities etc.

The area referred to in the news report is concerning an area called the Nikyal bulge by the Pak army. The Pak army FDLs are located within the villages, so when 81mm mortars are used, we target the Coy HQs (their forward FDLs are within 500 mtrs, so direct fire weapons are used). So it is possible that stray mortar bombs fall in the village too.

Oracle

16 Aug 13,, 05:50

Hahahahaa

Okay Cowboy :biggrin:

Maybe my support of US rubbed you the wrong way. I in no way meant US nukes to land in Pakistan. Those nukes are too costly to be wasted on Pakistan. But, is there anything wrong is asking Pakistan to dismantle the terrorist infrastructure? It's killing your guys more than anything else.

Have you ever wondered how life would be without theocracy? Without masking as Indians in US to get a job? Being respected.

As some DefPros in here see, I see it too. US exit from Afg, and the molehill starts to crumble.

You should feel lucky, I ain't a cowboy and in the wrong place.

Oracle

16 Aug 13,, 05:55

As a country, if India's goal is to make Pakistan pay, invade them, go all out or not. Be my guest, I got my popcorn ready already.

If India's goal is to achieve something bigger whatever it is, then probably not. Your economy is in disarray, Rupee is at the lowest point in decades. Not a good time to stir things up, IMO.

India's economy never did dissuade itself from winning the battle in 1971. Let's not start a pissing contest.

And oh, btw, with a weak rupee India can import many from China. It sure is helping your economy.

Tronic

16 Aug 13,, 06:18

On the LOC, there is no evacuation till hot war in imminent. That use to happen in the old days, but not anymore as any evacuation is a dead giveaway.

I stand corrected.

Agnostic Muslim

16 Aug 13,, 14:04

Without masking as Indians in US to get a job? Being respected.

Bull-crap - isolated examples don't point to some widespread problem on this count. From a personal perspective, I am very open and proud of my Pakistani origins, and I usually find a way to bring my origins into casual/informal engagements with colleagues and contacts (lunches, dinners etc.) since it usually opens up interesting conversations.

And as far as changing Pakistan's constitution to make her a secular rather than theocratic State - that is not something that any one entity has the ability to force on the entire country without a major internal conflict. Any such change will be a generational undertaking.

notorious_eagle

16 Aug 13,, 14:40

You started it

Off course we started it, we are responsible for all the evils while our Indian friends are Angels :).

Even as fresh skirmishes rage along the northern reaches of the Line of Control, new details are emerging on the controversial killing of four Pakistani men on the Line of Control, an incident which is believed to have set off a spiral of clashes culminating in Monday’s lethal ambush of troops near Chakan-da-Bagh in Poonch. Pakistan has alleged that the four men were kidnapped by Indian troops operating across the Line of Control.

In addition, a Pakistani soldier was killed before this incident. You can't slaughter 4 civilians and a PA soldier and not expect the Pakistani side to retaliate. This is not your border with Bangladesh, where BSF can kill with impunity.

Of course you do, because as soon as our boys take down our guns, your attack dogs will be back.

Glass Houses :biggrin:

If India wants to turn up the heat, i say by all means go ahead.

Without masking as Indians in US to get a job? Being respected.

I think AM answered it pretty well but i will chip in a bit too.

It appears that you have never been to the US. Americans are one of the most tolerant people in the world. The Average American Joe could care less whether you are from Pakistan, India, Bangladesh or Argentina. Americans are too busy with their own lives, they couldn't give a damn where you are from as long as you don't interfere with their personal lives. So please, keep your fallacies to yourself.

cdude

16 Aug 13,, 15:48

Dont worry about our economy, our basic foundations are far stronger than they are in China.

That's hilarious.

Anyways, it's up to you people to decide what the priority is, not me. We'll go back build our "foundations" stronger.

antimony

16 Aug 13,, 16:00

Off course we started it, we are responsible for all the evils while our Indian friends are Angels :).

In addition, a Pakistani soldier was killed before this incident. You can't slaughter 4 civilians and a PA soldier and not expect the Pakistani side to retaliate. This is not your border with Bangladesh, where BSF can kill with impunity.

Glass Houses :biggrin:

All of the most flagrant terrorist incidences in the last 1.5 decades have been after or during a peace process. Lahore was followed followed by Kargil. the following peace was done in by the 2001 Parliament attacks. The three year peace process started in 2004 resulted in the Mumbai 2006 bombings and then of course there was 26/11.

Each time we extended the olive branch and trusted our government, we got paid in our own blood.

Agnostic Muslim

16 Aug 13,, 16:55

All of the most flagrant terrorist incidences in the last 1.5 decades have been after or during a peace process. Lahore was followed followed by Kargil. the following peace was done in by the 2001 Parliament attacks. The three year peace process started in 2004 resulted in the Mumbai 2006 bombings and then of course there was 26/11.

Each time we extended the olive branch and trusted our government, we got paid in our own blood.
Only the Kargil operation could be argued to be a deliberate violation of the peace process by the State of Pakistan - the 2006 Mumbai bombings and 2011 Mumbai attacks were not State sanctioned acts.

Agnostic Muslim

16 Aug 13,, 17:05

An excerpt from analysis (relatively calm and sane as usual) by MK Bhadrakumar on Indian fears regarding the 'US withdrawal from Afghanistan':

... The security threat emanating from Afghanistan is very substantial for Russia and the Central Asian states but they are not indulging in histrionics.

Some geopolitical analysts have written that the US strategy in Afghanistan (and Central Asia) becomes part of its containment project. China’s Xinjiang lies adjacent to Central Asia and Afghanistan and militant Islamism is a potent force in that region. Nonetheless, Beijing is going about rationally to address these concerns, taking care not to magnify them out of proportion.

Evidently, India’s security concerns are best addressed by picking up the threads of dialogue with Pakistan but, alas, the mood in the country is rather ugly today with even senior leaders taking recourse to vacuous grandstanding and an unreasonable position.

The international reaction to the recent incidents on the LOC should come as an eyeopener. Not a word of criticism has been voiced against Pakistan by any country. India’s self-righteousness hasn’t impressed anyone.

The US pointblank refused to be drawn into the Indian blame game and stood aside to advise Delhi and islamabad to sort out the tensions and resolve the Kashmir dispute. The UN secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon offered to mediate. Nor has the international opinion been any different on the standoff with China in April. Any serious country should draw the appropriate conclusions from such absolute lack of support from the international community.

Instead, India continues to allow itself to be held hostage by rabble-rousing pundits and a trigger-happy security and military establishment, which is all dressed up and nowhere to go.
The onus is on the political leadership to put in their place these vested interests (within the establishment and outside) who make it a point to raise the temperature in India’s relations with Pakistan or China and cause upheavals in the public sentiment.

The pattern is so well-established that one can safely predict stormy weather ahead through September and October, since there is talk that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh may hold talks with the Pakistani and Chinese leaderships during this period.

The motley crowd of retired military officials who fancy themselves as great ’strategic thinkers’, self-styled pundits who claim to know China, rabid ultra-nationalists who thrive on the baser instincts of man and a clutch of TV anchormen who shamelessly pander to jingoism is all set to work up mass hysteria. Suffice to say, India is not presenting the image of being a responsible power. The sight is pathetic.

India looks ludicrous to world community - Indian Punchline (http://blogs.rediff.com/mkbhadrakumar/2013/08/14/india-looks-ludicrous-to-world-community/)

And the 'pandering to jingoism and the baser instincts of man in order to work up mass hysteria' (by some commentators) is on display on this thread as well ...

It is incumbent upon the Indian political leadership to help create and sustain a constituency for peace and sanity in Pakistan

From the depths of her loss, the grieving wife of the soldier who was slain at the Line of Control (LoC) has declared that she will not accept any compensation from the Bihar government unless “action” is taken against Pakistan. A widow’s grief is understandable. What is not, though, is why the nightly, outrage industry has gone into overdrive demanding an apology from a minister in Nitish Kumar’s government for pointing out that soldiers do die on the border. No doubt, the death of any citizen at the hands of external forces cannot be easily brushed aside, much less the martyrdom of a soldier, because he represents the sovereign. In our case, every solider embodies the Indian state and its sovereignty. Yet, let it be reiterated, there is nothing unusual about soldiers dying in the combat zone.

‘Punish Pakistan’

Equally incomprehensible is the outrage industry’s continuing delusion — despite being fully aware of the 60-year history of an intractable, bloody and ugly relationship — that Pakistan is an errant schoolboy who can be easily tamed, disciplined and, if need be, spanked.

Not to be outdone, a straggling posse of about three dozen “strategic experts” has also pitched in, demanding that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh should rethink his proposed conversation with his Pakistani counterpart later next month in New York, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly. The argument is that any conversation with Pakistan would be an undesirable and unnecessary act of appeasement.

The list of signatories to this “no summit in New York” démarche is an impressive roll-call of men of experience. These include men who are intimately familiar with the extent and limit of Indian defence capabilities; in particular, some of them must be only too familiar with our generals’ gift for braggadocio and grandstanding. Some of them achieved their operational manhood when they helped the political leadership script the terms of surrender at Kandahar in the closing days of 1999. Some of them were in positions of responsibility when a Prime Minister allowed himself to be provoked by a television reporter into impetuously promising an “aar paar ke ladai” with Pakistan after the December 13, 2001 terrorist attack on Parliament. And perhaps each one of them has made his personal, painful discovery that the very political heavyweights who were thought to be men of Churchillian resolve turned out to be men with feet of clay. And, of course, some of them hope to man the national security ramparts in a Narendra Modi regime next May.

Whatever their political biases, these men firmly belong to the “Punish Pakistan” school. The subtext of their argument is that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and other United Progressive Alliance (UPA) leaders cannot be trusted to engage Pakistan without compromising our national interests; on the other hand, the unstated assumption is that the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) crowd is endowed with foresight, prescience and wisdom to see through the Pakistani stratagem.

Measuring up

This school refuses to recognise that our decisive, conventional, defence superiority over Pakistan became a thing of the past within a week of that triumphant moment in the sands of Pokhran in 1998. But we continue to believe that there are muscular options available — and that these options are easily evident to everyone except the timidest of the decision-makers. And a new, “bold,” political leader would not hesitate to empower our brave soldiers to “sort out” the irksome “*****.”

It is one thing for a demagogue to reinvent the “biryani” allegory; it is an altogether serious matter for our experienced, foreign policy hands to abet the demagogue’s delusions. Take the grand deshbhakta response to the most audacious affront to Indian democracy on December 13, 2001. The “punish Pakistan” school chooses to remain convinced that our response was efficacious and an imaginative exercise in coercive diplomacy.

On the other hand, Jaswant Singh, a key decision-maker at that time, has had the courage and intellectual honesty to record what a taxing task he had on his hands to convince his political colleagues as well as the itchy “chiefs” of the usefulness of a “restraint (in that context) as a strategic asset for avoiding conflict.”

Coercive diplomacy

The much touted coercive diplomacy of Operation Parakram ended in a whimper, with over a thousand soldiers losing their lives. Those in the NDA government are entitled to claim that this year-long quasi-confrontation achieved its diplomatic aims, but the world did not share that sanguine view.

This is what Mr. Bruce O. Riedel has to say about Operation Parakram in his most recent book, Avoiding Armageddon: America, India, and Pakistan to the Brink and Back. As a highly networked policy-wonk in Washington, he was naturally and easily allowed [during the stand-off with Pakistan] access to “an advanced Indian air force jet fighter base….the pilots were frustrated. They had been preparing for war for nine months now, and they were ready. As professionals, they were eager to do their job. But the order never came, and a month later they would be told to stand down.”

And, Mr. Riedel rubs it in: “From the Thar Desert to Fort Williams in Kolkata, the Indian military academy in Pune, and military headquarters in New Delhi, we heard the same argument: India cannot let Pakistan get away with terrorism; it must pay a price. Nonetheless, in 2002, Pakistan got away with it.”

Pakistan remained unrebuked, and yet Prime Minister Vajpayee travelled to Islamabad to put faith in the words of an untrustworthy general. Prime Minister Singh has only carried forward the Vajpayee-Brijesh Mishra line of engagement with Islamabad in the hope of tapping the saner elements in the Pakistani establishment and society. No one is, nor can anyone be unaware that the Pakistan Army has institutionalised duplicity. Yet it has become incumbent upon the Indian political leadership to try to help create and sustain a constituency for peace and sanity in Pakistan.

Foreign policy

The alternative to the Vajpayee-Brajesh Mishra-Manmohan Singh line is a policy of uncompromising, perpetual, frozen hostility towards Pakistan; it will not be without its costs, at home and abroad. It is no rocket science to understand that the jihadi elements (including those in the Pakistan Army) devoutly wish to keep cranking up India-Pakistan tensions, in the malevolent hope of bringing the Kashmir issue back on the front-burner. And, let there be no confusion; this confrontational approach is electorally attractive to a section of our political leadership, itching to reintroduce the Huntingtonian clash of cultures in India. In the process, India can only hand over to Pakistan the ultimate victory by becoming like Pakistan, home to jingoism, xenophobia and rough patriotism.

The latest dust-up has posed a larger question: must our democratic energy become a source of weakness in the conduct of foreign policy? Will every local incident and tactical fracas result in forcing our strategic hand? Will every ceasefire violation lead to a full-scale war? Domestic, political cussedness has already complicated equations with Sri Lanka and Bangladesh; we are incapable of even a hint of magnanimity in our approach to the neighbours and then we sulk that they are cozying up to China. It is time we understood that all the screaming and shouting in television studios does not add up to strategic muscle. It is time for the demagogues and their strategic spear-carriers to grow up.

(Harish Khare is a senior journalist and former media adviser to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. He is currently a Jawaharlal Nehru Fellow.)

I do not agree with everything he says but still worth sharing.

antimony

16 Aug 13,, 19:14

Only the Kargil operation could be argued to be a deliberate violation of the peace process by the State of Pakistan - the 2006 Mumbai bombings and 2011 Mumbai attacks were not State sanctioned acts.

And you know this for certain? How? Are you privy to all internal working of your country's security apparatus? And please don't bring up the "lack of proof means absolvement" thing again, that we saw in your drone related threads.

antimony

16 Aug 13,, 19:22

This school refuses to recognise that our decisive, conventional, defence superiority over Pakistan became a thing of the past within a week of that triumphant moment in the sands of Pokhran in 1998.

BS, this is exactly what they want us to believe. We fell for this during Kargil and we are falling for this now.

Agnostic Muslim

16 Aug 13,, 19:31

And please don't bring up the "lack of proof means absolvement" thing again, that we saw in your drone related threads.
A complete lack of credible evidence supporting your absurd allegations means exactly that - your claims cannot be substantiated and are therefore nothing more than speculation/paranoia.

Firestorm

16 Aug 13,, 19:58

Bhadrakumar is hilarious.

Suffice to say, India is not presenting the image of being a responsible power. The sight is pathetic.
Oh, don't worry. Nobody in his or her right mind will ever confuse India with being any sort of "power". Even third rate powers have a limit to how much punishment they will take before lashing out. India seems to have none.

cdude

16 Aug 13,, 21:12

It is wonderful to see you take pleasure in human suffering. By the way, try cheerios, they are healthier

I am glad to see how much your heart bleeds for us.

Cheerios make you fat and stupid, try lean turkey jerky. One needs high quality protein to think.

Your economy is screwed, yet you think it's a good time to escalate? My heart bleeds for nobody. But I am always ready to get my popcorn ready for good entertainment.

Wait, you don't live in India. Typical.

Agnostic Muslim

16 Aug 13,, 21:36

Bhadrakumar is hilarious.

Oh, don't worry. Nobody in his or her right mind will ever confuse India with being any sort of "power". Even third rate powers have a limit to how much punishment they will take before lashing out. India seems to have none.
You misunderstood his argument - his point is that the various actors (political, military and media) in India that race to incite mass hysteria and 'the blame Pakistan game' are the ones that create an environment/backdrop in which the only way that India cannot appear 'weak' and 'taking punishment' is through undertaking unfeasible and escalatory military and diplomatic action against Pakistan. In essence, the war-mongers in your military, media and political opposition force the Indian government into a position where it has little choice but to look weak.

Firestorm

16 Aug 13,, 22:37

Well lets look at the arguments of Bhadrakumar and his ilk shall we?

The Indian security experts were certain that in the downstream of the 9/11 attacks, Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden’s next target would be India, but in the event, the US intervention in Afghanistan in 2001 and the war that followed helped ease the pressure on Jammu & Kashmir and gave Delhi a breather to address the root cause of the alienation and militancy in the Valley. (Of course, Delhi largely failed to capitalize on the favorable situation.)

This is completely beside the point. The Indian govt. addressing the supposed "root causes" of local militancy in Kashmir makes absolutely no difference to the Pakistan Army's efforts to train and push in terrorists from their side to cause mayhem on the Indian side.

Now that the watershed event of the US drawdown in Afghanistan is under way, our experts are once again shooting from the hips that the jihadi elements operating in the region are set to turn the heat on India.
Contradicting himself here. He agrees above that it was the US intervention in Afghanistan which inadvertently gave India a breather. So how are those Indians who are now warning that the earlier threat will return once the US leaves, "shooting from the hip"? They are absolutely right aren't they?

Nonetheless, the Jalalabad attack can be interpreted variously. In all likelihood, it was a failed attempt by Pakistan’s ISI to force Delhi to close down a listening post so terribly close to Pakistan’s sensitive border with Afghanistan. The probability, therefore, is that there could be more attempts to force our personnel to quit Jalalabad and shut down the consulate, which for some obscure reason unnerves Pakistan.
So does he think the ISI is justified to conduct a suicide attack on an Indian consulate to assuage their paranoia about Indian "listening posts"? If not, how does this tie in with his overall tone that India should go soft on Pakistan and do nothing beyond dialogue?

First, the US is far from retreating from Afghanistan.
The widely-reported interview last week, here, by the US commander in Afghanistan Gen. Joseph Dunford makes it clear that there is going to be a sizeable US troop presence in Afghanistan beyond 2014. Gen. Dunford virtually threatened to give a “loud and clear signal to regional actors” as well as to “send a message to the Taliban that they can’t wait us [US] out.”
This is laughable. The US has nothing more to do in Afghanistan. They are even negotiating with the Taliban. They don't care a flying fcuk if the Taliban and their pakistani friends use it as a base to attack India. And why should they? They are not here to look after Indian interests. That's India's job.

Pakistan’s economy is in a terribly bad shape and cannot easily sustain the burden of undertaking a war in Afghanistan. An elected government is primarily accountable to the people.
The PA isn't. And they won't be taking orders from Nawaz Sharif about what to do with their terror operations against India. Something tells me it wouldn't make a difference even if they did. They will do whatever it takes to get back to the good old days before 09/11 when they could use large swathes of Afg. as a big training camp.

Above all, there is heightened awareness today within Pakistan itself regarding the threat to its own security from the ‘blowback’ and contrary to what Indian experts are implying, the jihadi elements and groups can no longer be micromanaged by the ISI.
And yet we have distinctions between "Good" and "bad" taliban.

It should not come as surprise if Pakistan begins to dismantle the terrorist infrastructure on its soil.
What is this guy smoking? I'd like some of it.

There is a regional backdrop, too. The security threat emanating from Afghanistan is very substantial for Russia and the Central Asian states but they are not indulging in histrionics.
Some geopolitical analysts have written that the US strategy in Afghanistan (and Central Asia) becomes part of its containment project. China’s Xinjiang lies adjacent to Central Asia and Afghanistan and militant Islamism is a potent force in that region. Nonetheless, Beijing is going about rationally to address these concerns, taking care not to magnify them out of proportion.
The situations are hardly comparable. The terrorists going to fight in Chechnya and Xinjiang from Afghanistan aren't being sponsored by the Afghan government nor are they trained by the ANA. If this ever changed however, both Russia and China wouldn't hesitate to teach them a lesson they will never forget.
Lets be clear. India is not being attacked only by stateless jihadis. It is being attacked by the PA and the ISI. If hypothetically, the PA ever tried to play a similar game on the Russians or the Chinese (not that they can or will) even the COAS of Paksitan would be lucky to survive the ensuing bloodbath.

Evidently, India’s security concerns are best addressed by picking up the threads of dialogue with Pakistan
On what basis does he make this assertion? Even a cursory look at recent history can tell you that that is absolute bullcrap. Dialogue with pakistan has netted India only more terrorist attacks and border incursions.

The international reaction to the recent incidents on the LOC should come as an eyeopener. Not a word of criticism has been voiced against Pakistan by any country. India’s self-righteousness hasn’t impressed anyone.
The US pointblank refused to be drawn into the Indian blame game and stood aside to advise Delhi and islamabad to sort out the tensions and resolve the Kashmir dispute. The UN secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon offered to mediate.
That is hardly surprising. The US/UN is in no position to determine what actually happened and consequently come to any kind of conclusion. Nor does it serve them to antagonize pakistan right now. Why is Bhadrakumar so hung up on what the US thinks? If he is writing this article primarily from an American viewpoint, he should make that clear.

Instead, India continues to allow itself to be held hostage by rabble-rousing pundits and a trigger-happy security and military establishment, which is all dressed up and nowhere to go.
Ah, now he descends to barefaced lies. How has the military establishment been trigger happy? In fact, they have actually been quite the opposite. They haven't done anything that the government hasn't asked them to do. If they had been trigger happy, there would have been a war by now after so many flagrant provocations.

The motley crowd of retired military officials who fancy themselves as great ’strategic thinkers’, self-styled pundits who claim to know China, rabid ultra-nationalists who thrive on the baser instincts of man and a clutch of TV anchormen who shamelessly pander to jingoism is all set to work up mass hysteria.
Bhadrakumar comes from a branch of the Indian government (the foreign service) which has nothing to show for itself except a litany of failures. The IFS is glaringly incompetent even compared to other branches of the Indian government machinery and that is saying a lot in India. Maybe he should stop throwing stones at others.

antimony

16 Aug 13,, 23:14

Cheerios make you fat and stupid, try lean turkey jerky. One needs high quality protein to think.

And that's what popcorn is for you? Maybe you are already down the cheerios path a bit too much.

Wait, you don't live in India. Typical.

And you don't live in China, Yet, Tibet is still yours, though it is faraway (wait, it really is far away from NY)

cdude

16 Aug 13,, 23:27

And that's what popcorn is for you? Maybe you are already down the cheerios path a bit too much.

And you don't live in China, Yet, Tibet is still yours, though it is faraway (wait, it really is far away from NY)

I am not the one who fled his 3rd world motherland and still advocate for more military spendings from that 3rd world country.

I hope China can live in peace and put more money in helping the poor (that includes helping the poor Tibetan Chinese).

antimony

16 Aug 13,, 23:59

I am not the one who fled his 3rd world motherland and still advocate for more military spendings from that 3rd world country.

Who fled where from what?:confused:

I hope China can live in peace and put more money in helping the poor (that includes helping the poor Tibetan Chinese).

Yes, I am sure that is what your signature means

cdude

17 Aug 13,, 01:18

Who fled where from what?:confused:

Yes, I am sure that is what your signature means
No, this is what it means. Put your money in building roads, not revenge against your neighbors. It's a simple concept.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fXrSAsqpoY

See that road? cheaper than a Kilo

Tronic

17 Aug 13,, 03:47

Hate to feed the troll but...

No, this is what it means. Put your money in building roads, not revenge against your neighbors. It's a simple concept.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fXrSAsqpoY

See that road? cheaper than a Kilo

Never had a lot of respect for many of India's policies, but China as an example? Really? :rolleyes:

Tronic

17 Aug 13,, 03:55

You can't slaughter 4 civilians and a PA soldier and not expect the Pakistani side to retaliate.

You mean, these? Line of Control: Indian forces kidnap four Kashmiri men – The Express Tribune (http://tribune.com.pk/story/586416/line-of-control-indian-forces-kidnap-four-kashmiri-men/)

Innocent villagers, "herb collectors", my ass. These men were specifically targeted for a reason. Good riddance.

antimony

17 Aug 13,, 06:55

No, this is what it means. Put your money in building roads, not revenge against your neighbors. It's a simple concept.

New Delhi: One of India's 20 most wanted terrorists, Abdul Karim Tunda, was arrested by the Special Cell of Delhi Police from the Indo-Nepal border last night and produced at a Delhi court this morning.

ambidex

17 Aug 13,, 10:25

A kilo of what?

He is having a taunt at us on Kilo class submarine which meet an accident killing 18 sailors.

He took flight from Karachi 6 days back. He was spotted by RAW in Nepal and a trail was placed on him. Caught at Indo-Nepal border having Pakistani passport. He is a close aid of Hafiz Saeed who asked his men to attack India during a mass Eid procession he held in Pakistan.

Hafiz saeed visited LOC areas before two of our soldiers were beheaded. Huriyat leaders from J&K have been allowed to visit Pakistan by this dumb GoI where they have been meeting this terrorist and they all possibly begging him to stir the insurgency in Kashmir. The kind of military support these infiltrators are getting is self exposing the nexus. Otherwise what Pakistanis are going to achieve by Killing of Indian soldiers in an ambush ?

@Lemontree; Sir can you please explain the military term a gentleman used at 0:24 to 0:26 seconds of this video explaining the tactic used to disturb 'some' posture grid to let infiltrators sneak into India.

Also there is another video showing thermal images of infiltrators recorded by InA. There are dog/s barking in the background when soldiers were intercepting the infiltrators and I remember reading one of your comment a year ago that you had a dog at your forward post and you never missed his alarms to react appropriately against any activity across border. Can you shed more light on that. :)

antimony

17 Aug 13,, 15:50

He is having a taunt at us on Kilo class submarine which meet an accident killing 18 sailors.

Oh stop killing the fun I am having, will ya ? A sarcastic comment is best left unexplained. :)

cdude

17 Aug 13,, 19:18

Hate to feed the troll but...
Never had a lot of respect for many of India's policies, but China as an example? Really? :rolleyes:

Them Chinese? are you kidding me. The Chinese are never original.

Let me introduce you my personal savior Jesus Christ, you must've heard of him. Nah, next time maybe if you wanna hear more about him.

You people had a pretty dope founding father in Gandhi. Or is it only non-violent toward white people?

Tronic

18 Aug 13,, 00:40

Them Chinese? are you kidding me. The Chinese are never original.

Then stop the d!ck measuring contest if you already know it ain't going anywhere.

Let me introduce you my personal savior Jesus Christ, you must've heard of him. Nah, next time maybe if you wanna hear more about him.

You people had a pretty dope founding father in Gandhi. Or is it only non-violent toward white people?

Are you trying to tell me that you follow Jesus Christ? Because your trolling indicates otherwise...

As for Gandhi being the "founding father" of India... In a democracy, that's open to personal opinion.

cdude

18 Aug 13,, 01:57

Are you trying to tell me that you follow Jesus Christ? Because your trolling indicates otherwise...

As for Gandhi being the "founding father" of India... In a democracy, that's open to personal opinion.

True, being the only one here not calling an eye for an eye and put money in better use. People would think I am from Gandhi's village.

gf0012-aust

18 Aug 13,, 02:06

I am rapidly approaching the precipice of trying to work out whether I should euthenase myself to stop the pain when I read this thread, or whether some of other form of moderation generated immolation is worth exercising to save every other reader from going intellectually blind as well

Here's the thing. The quality of debate in this thread makes Hugo Chavez look like a budding intellectual - its time to shift it up a gear folks before it drives everyone into some kind of self flagellation to try and cope with whats come to pass

grip it up really quickly

Deltacamelately

18 Aug 13,, 09:31

I saw this coming. Painful indeed.

lemontree

19 Aug 13,, 05:07

An excerpt from analysis (relatively calm and sane as usual) by MK Bhadrakumar on Indian fears regarding the 'US withdrawal from Afghanistan':

India looks ludicrous to world community - Indian Punchline (http://blogs.rediff.com/mkbhadrakumar/2013/08/14/india-looks-ludicrous-to-world-community/)
That is an opionion...of course, not necessary an educated one.

And the 'pandering to jingoism and the baser instincts of man in order to work up mass hysteria' (by some commentators) is on display on this thread as well
I have just finished a book on the Haqqani Network, it has given me a new POV on the relationship between the Taliban - Haqqanis - AQ - TTQ, and the close relationship with the Pak militray establishment.

I dont think there will ever be peace between our two nations, although you try to paint a saner picture, the effort is futile.

lemontree

19 Aug 13,, 05:12

See that road? cheaper than a Kilo

That is a rather cheap comment, brings you at a level with those found in sewers.

cdude

19 Aug 13,, 16:27

That is a rather cheap comment, brings you at a level with those found in sewers.

The joke aint expensive, the setup aint cheap.

Yeah, personal attacks will make me really raged....

Minskaya

19 Aug 13,, 16:39

The next one to step over the civility line is going on a vacation and it ain't to Disneyland. Final warning.

Deltacamelately

19 Aug 13,, 17:12

The next one to step over the civility line is going on a vacation and it ain't to Disneyland. Final warning.
Madam,

Over the years I and the rest have witnessed worse and even puked. Having said that, mocking the death of some 18 odd sailors and the associated grief of all their family and kin is regrettable, if not outright criminal. I personally detest, such crudeness in absolute terza, rhyme and meter.

cdude

19 Aug 13,, 17:18

Madam,

Over the years I and the rest have witnessed worse and even puked. Having said that, mocking the death of some 18 odd sailors and the associated grief of all their family and kin is regrettable, if not outright criminal. I personally detest, such crudeness in absolute terza, rhyme and meter.

Read my original post. I think there is a pretty clear line between mocking mis-allocation of your national funds and mocking the death of sailors.

And I aint cross that line.

Minskaya

19 Aug 13,, 17:47

Madam,

Over the years I and the rest have witnessed worse and even puked. Having said that, mocking the death of some 18 odd sailors and the associated grief of all their family and kin is regrettable, if not outright criminal. I personally detest, such crudeness in absolute terza, rhyme and meter.

Deltacamelately,

I have a low 'rudeness' threshold. Although English is not my native tongue, I believe that it is expansive, versatile, and elastic enough to make a point without injecting rudeness and crudity.

I insist that WAB discourse travel the higher road.

DarthSiddius

20 Aug 13,, 00:05

Intercepts of Pak responding to firing along Line of Control (http://www.ndtv.com/video/player/news/intercepts-of-pak-responding-to-firing-along-line-of-control/287434?curl=1376888077)

Hope this does not blow out of proportion.

gf0012-aust

20 Aug 13,, 04:42

So far the Mods are writing responses in Green coloured font, it's when we start responding in Red coloured font that the alarm bells should be going off in peoples heads that toleration and goodwill has been exhausted ......

lemontree

20 Aug 13,, 04:57

Intercepts of Pak responding to firing along Line of Control (http://www.ndtv.com/video/player/news/intercepts-of-pak-responding-to-firing-along-line-of-control/287434?curl=1376888077)

The part where you see an ATGM being used by the InA unit to blow up the PaK Army bunker, shows how things have escalated there. The follow up night scene is where a ZU-23 mm is being used in ground role against another Pak post.

Firestorm

20 Aug 13,, 05:35

Looking at that video, it seems the Army doesn't share the view of the Indian posters here that never-ending dialogue, "engagement with civilians and moderates" and more trade should be India's reaction to the umpteen attacks emanating from Pakistan. And the likes of Bhadrakumar who infest the Indian media these days, will find this act by the Army to be "shameless pandering to jingoism" no doubt.

Deltacamelately

20 Aug 13,, 07:26

Deltacamelately,

I have a low 'rudeness' threshold. Although English is not my native tongue, I believe that it is expansive, versatile, and elastic enough to make a point without injecting rudeness and crudity.

I insist that WAB discourse travel the higher road.
My apologies for not being a bit more clear. I don't believe you have been even an iota crude in your deliberations, rather your's was just the opposite and very suave.

I was infact commenting on the crudeness in cdude's reasoning, while comparing a infra/development project with a rather heart wrenching incidence involving the death of sailors, while on duty. My bad.

Deltacamelately

20 Aug 13,, 07:32

Read my original post. I think there is a pretty clear line between mocking mis-allocation of your national funds and mocking the death of sailors.

And I aint cross that line.
You ain't fooling anybody here. Keep up the good work. Won't take your bait here. Notice I've not been commenting on your educated posts. You may want to ignore mine as well.

Minskaya

20 Aug 13,, 08:01

My apologies for not being a bit more clear. I don't believe you have been even an iota crude in your deliberations, rather your's was just the opposite and very suave.

Sir,

Although I addressed you directly, my post was truly intended as a blanket message to all. As a relatively new Moderator here at the WAB, I want everyone to be aware of my expectations. There are untold scores of message boards where rudeness and crudity are the norm rather than the exception. The WAB is a refreshing alternative to such dismal interchange. During my tenure here on the WAB staff, I fully intend to reinforce and nurture the highly respected tradition of this board. In essence, I insist on honorable and respectable dialogue from prince and pauper alike, regardless of one's political position and persuasion.

ambidex

20 Aug 13,, 10:39

The part where you see an ATGM being used by the InA unit to blow up the PaK Army bunker, shows how things have escalated there. The follow up night scene is where a ZU-23 mm is being used in ground role against another Pak post.

Please answer whenever you get time on what was the word that gentleman was saying at ~0:22 to 0:26.

Agnostic Muslim

20 Aug 13,, 20:42

An excerpt from an article by Ejaz Haider:

... Take India’s example. While we know the power the Pakistani military wields in policymaking, Mr Sharif will be well-advised to beware of the smart workarounds the Indian military has developed within the policymaking web of that country. That even discerning Indians tend to shy away from seriously studying this problem may be good nationalism but doesn’t make rigorous scholarship.

The recent flare-ups and India’s response have three broad reasons: Kashmir, which refuses to go away even after Pakistan has dropped the dispute like a hot potato; the reorganisation and emergence of a political rightwing that seemed in disarray only three-four years ago; and the dwindling economy where the growth rate has plummeted from slightly upwards of nine per cent in 2010-11 to about five per cent in 2013-14. The rightwing is eyeing the coming elections and building pressure on the government, the military, sensing budget cuts, requires a hyped-up situation with Pakistan. And Kashmir remains a case of political and security ineptitude.

From 17.6 per cent (2012-13) and 11.6 per cent (2011-12), India’s defence budget this year has seen a hike of merely 5.3 per cent. This is directly owed to the slowdown. Even last year’s hike was part of a strategy of overall fiscal profligacy but that policy hasn’t worked. Even as revenue expenditure in some cases has been cut, it’s the capital expenditure that is likely to take a hit. The navy’s modernisation budget is already down by about 29 per cent. There are other finer details but the point is this: if the economy doesn’t pick up, the Indian military’s big ticket items will be impacted and there could be further cuts in pay and allowances.

The rule is simple: no large-scale bureaucratic organisation likes budget cuts. Nowhere; almost never. India under threat makes a good slogan. This is why the Indian military has co-opted certain sections of the media to get its footage of fake firing incidents across the LoC and photographs showing ‘Pakistani’ landmines planted, most incredibly, by Pakistani troops in areas heavily guarded by the Indian military! And the obliging media has swallowed this hook, line and sinker ...

DE, I seriously have a question. Why did you wait for me to tell you the obvious?
Don't follow ?

You have been following me for years. This should have been obvious.

Yes, Hitesh, aka Blademaster, it should have been obvious to you as well.
Right, so I was trying to reiterate what's been discussed here for years now. It seems not to have had much effect given subsequent posts by others. People will get riled up emotionally no matter what.

This saddens me to no end.

This is nothing more than a pissing contest by both sides to see who can inflict the most casualties before the other quits. Both sides are embarked on killing for the sake of killing. Not to hold ground, not to achieve the destruction of a hostile threat. But to kill, just to kill.

A waste of good men for the simple pleasure of bloodletting.

I pray someone with enough sense to put a stop to this. There are many reasons why you would initiate military actions, including punitive actions. But this? This. This.
A cheap show for the masses, 8 months before the elections. That means its manageable. Both sides will claim a victory and things will move on.

Double Edge

21 Aug 13,, 01:13

This "strengthen the civvies" argument is rapidly getting stale from an Indian point of view. The civvies have been strong before. It did not help India-Pakistan relations one bit. Stop thinking from an American perspective. Pakistani elites love the US regardless of what they might say in public. Most of them have family there or in Canada. They aren't your typical religious nuts and do not think of the West as the great satan. They make up most of the civil admin and if they get more power, it is obviously better for the US. It makes absolutely no difference to India. Their view about India is no different from that of an average jihadi.
PA cannot defeat us and neither can we defeat the PA in Pakistan. If any change is to happen then it has to come from within Pakistan.

Outrage from the people and "strong words of condemnation" from the politicos.
GOI blames pakistan based terrorist groups, sends info about them to paksitan.
Suspension of dialogue and cricket matches.
Time passes. Terrorists remain free.
Calls from some political parties and bleeding heart liberal journalists, to resume dialogue and "engage" with pakistan.
Resumption of dialogue and cricket. Offers to increase trade. Everything seems hunky dory. meanwhile the ISI and PA plan a new attack.
New border incident or terrorist attack and the cycle continues...
It is that easy to sabotage any efforts to end this vicious cycle. Be it PA or non-state actors. Given the level of security the people of Karachi have had since 2008. The PA does not have a monopoly on violence in their own country. Big song & dance is made along their eastern border, western border is another matter.

So all we can do is react or not. This is what is getting stale for me. Same old same old. What are we doing to gain the initiative.

I don't know how close the pak elite views are to the average jihadi but how safe is it for them to say anything in favour of India. Because the moment relations turn sour then they will be in trouble. Are they really free to express themselves here. This is why I don't take their views seriously as they are not independent. At least when in Pakistan, outside Pakistan may be different. Why is it a 15 yr old girl has a big voice outside Pakistan but would have been shot for what she believed in otherwise. And she was.

Pak liberals get a voice so long as they paint a more human face about Pakistan. Otherwise their funds are cut and they have to keep silent. Does this look like freedom to you ?

We are reaching out to the PA? Since when? And how? The PA does not want to reach out to us.
PA tries to get us to jump whenever they want. When we take the bait that is what i mean by reaching out to the PA.

Admittedly its gotten harder since Kargil. So i see that as progress on our part.

So people asking for retaliation against an external foe who is killing them is domestic politics now. Or am I misunderstanding you?
Those people are reacting out of emotions. The opposition jumps in and the politcos milk it. The media fans the fires. Its all a good laugh actually.

Please answer whenever you get time on what was the word that gentleman was saying at ~0:22 to 0:26.

I'm sorry I did not see your post earlier.

@Lemontree; Sir can you please explain the military term a gentleman used at 0:24 to 0:26 seconds of this video explaining the tactic used to disturb 'some' posture grid to let infiltrators sneak into India.
From the subtitles it appears that the weapons are layed in a preplanned manner to trap intruders with the help of the thermal imagers. These imagers may not be fitted on weapons in this case.

I have operated in the area being shown in the video.

Also there is another video showing thermal images of infiltrators recorded by InA. There are dog/s barking in the background when soldiers were intercepting the infiltrators and I remember reading one of your comment a year ago that you had a dog at your forward post and you never missed his alarms to react appropriately against any activity across border. Can you shed more light on that.
All forward posts have the local bakarwal dogs, who stay with us for food. So the barking was probably by one of our local dogs. They are not trained to keep silent as they are strays.

Firestorm

21 Aug 13,, 07:26

PA cannot defeat us and neither can we defeat the PA in Pakistan.
That hasn't stopped the PA from attacking us. They have only changed their tactics.

If any change is to happen then it has to come from within Pakistan.
So how long is it going to take for this change to happen? What makes you think they want this change to happen, and are not secretly satisfied that their "attack while maintaining plausible deniability" tactic is working great?

It is that easy to sabotage any efforts to end this vicious cycle. Be it PA or non-state actors. Given the level of security the people of Karachi have had since 2008. The PA does not have a monopoly on violence in their own country. Big song & dance is made along their eastern border, western border is another matter.
So you agree that the PA and ISI have been sabotaging peace efforts. So why does the onus of peace fall on us when their usual sabotage tactics involve killing Indians?

And I don't care about the security situation in Karachi. What I do know is that the security situation in Mumbai and other Indian cities has deteriorated considerably thanks to the ISI's lapdog, the LeT and their Indian subsidiary, the IM.

So all we can do is react or not. This is what is getting stale for me. Same old same old. What are we doing to gain the initiative.
Nothing. That is the whole problem. In fact, our government tries to make our position even weaker by making moronic statements like the one at Sharm-el-Shaikh. They have now fallen to the level of lying to the public by trying to cover up the PA's involvement in the latest attack.

I don't know how close the pak elite views are to the average jihadi but how safe is it for them to say anything in favour of India. Because the moment relations turn sour then they will be in trouble. Are they really free to express themselves here. This is why I don't take their views seriously as they are not independent. At least when in Pakistan, outside Pakistan may be different. Why is it a 15 yr old girl has a big voice outside Pakistan but would have been shot for what she believed in otherwise. And she was.

Pak liberals get a voice so long as they paint a more human face about Pakistan. Otherwise their funds are cut and they have to keep silent. Does this look like freedom to you ?
In Pakistan, even most liberals are hawks when it comes to India. Furthermore, if they aren't free enough even to speak their minds, how do you expect them to act and bring about this change that you dream about?

PA tries to get us to jump whenever they want. When we take the bait that is what i mean by reaching out to the PA.

Admittedly its gotten harder since Kargil. So i see that as progress on our part.
What exactly is the progress? That we are completely hamstrung now and have no collective national response to repeated attacks which I guess we have learned to forget within a record time.

Those people are reacting out of emotions. The opposition jumps in and the politcos milk it. The media fans the fires. Its all a good laugh actually.
Emotions like grief over the death of loved ones? Or anger at the slaughter of innocents by terrorists sponsored by Pakistan?

And this is all a good laugh to you? That is downright sadistic. :mad: I wonder if you'd have had the same reaction if you had been caught up in the Taj or Oberoi during 26/11.

Double Edge

21 Aug 13,, 11:17

That hasn't stopped the PA from attacking us. They have only changed their tactics.

So how long is it going to take for this change to happen? What makes you think they want this change to happen, and are not secretly satisfied that their "attack while maintaining plausible deniability" tactic is working great?
It will take time. Pakistan has had its first civilian transition of power since independence. The hope is that this pattern will continue into the future. This marks the beginning of an increase of empowerment for their civilians. Up to them where they go with it. The status quo does not benefit the people of both countries it only serves the interests of the few.

So you agree that the PA and ISI have been sabotaging peace efforts. So why does the onus of peace fall on us when their usual sabotage tactics involve killing Indians?
Not talking about peace summits. Saying there are changes that are afoot in the region as well as in the middle east that will have an effect in Pakistan that we need to identify, understand and work with.

If the Afghan elections go bad next year, then things start to heat up in the region. The developments in Syria which seem to suggest supporting a vetted insurgency against the Assad regime is better than allowing a civil war to continue. As otherwise it leads to the creation of a safe haven for extermists like happened in Afghanistan. After the 80s mujahideen support, we had the Kashmir insurgency. The PA sees if the west & the Arabs support the afghans then its ok for them to do the same with the Kashmiris. Now with Syria can we expect a repeat. Depends how well we contained the situation the first time around.

And I don't care about the security situation in Karachi. What I do know is that the security situation in Mumbai and other Indian cities has deteriorated considerably thanks to the ISI's lapdog, the LeT and their Indian subsidiary, the IM.
If the last ten years are any indicator then there is a correlation between the security situation inside Pakistan and untoward incidents in India. Bad things happening in Pakistan means motivation & funding is available for the same elsewhere. Karachi for them is like Bombay for us. I used Karachi as a snapshot, if things are bad there then the picture isn't very good in other areas either.

There is counter which is if bad things happen in Pakistan then the bad guys are too busy to cause any trouble for us. I'm not too persuaded by that because there will always be a leakage problem. Besides we're not the ones fomenting the trouble to begin with. This idea is fine so long as you get to fight them in a country other than ours.

Actually, since 26/11, things have improved considerably for us. The bomb attacks have been few & far between. The reasons for which are yet to be understood. How we achieved it and whether it can be sustained.

Nothing. That is the whole problem. In fact, our government tries to make our position even weaker by making moronic statements like the one at Sharm-el-Shaikh. They have now fallen to the level of lying to the public by trying to cover up the PA's involvement in the latest attack.
How much do you know about this incident and the events that led up to it. How good is your vision. Mine is not very good, that's why did not directly say anything. Waiting to see an analysis later on that will give a perspective on motivations and objectives.

In Pakistan, even most liberals are hawks when it comes to India. Furthermore, if they aren't free enough even to speak their minds, how do you expect them to act and bring about this change that you dream about?
Because their lot will not change if they don't try. They pay a higher price for inaction than we do. The real question is how many people in Pakistan realise that and are willing to work for it in the backdrop of similar people movements in the middle east.

What exactly is the progress? That we are completely hamstrung now and have no collective national response to repeated attacks which I guess we have learned to forget within a record time.
The payout to the PA is less than it used to be. That is what i'm referring to as progress. The PA has to up the stakes significantly which will affect their perception worldwide. This gives us more options & latitude to counter. Over time this should moderate the PA's behaviour. But there are events brewing in the horizon that will challenge us.

You think we've not made progress. I think we have but not enough. We're on the right path but more needs to be done.

Emotions like grief over the death of loved ones? Or anger at the slaughter of innocents by terrorists sponsored by Pakistan?

And this is all a good laugh to you? That is downright sadistic. :mad: I wonder if you'd have had the same reaction if you had been caught up in the Taj or Oberoi during 26/11.
I don't see the point in getting worked up over these incidents. The last few years have jaded me. I came close to being affected by 26/11. Someone i know reports to the manager of the Taj who lost his family. She left at 6:30. The perps showed up an hour later. It was a close call.

I am sympathetic to people who are directly affected. I am not sympathetic to the knee-jerk, quick fix thinking, populist reactions that inevitably follow. Those are what i laugh at.

n21

24 Aug 13,, 21:57

An excerpt from an article by Ejaz Haider:

.

The rule is simple: no large-scale bureaucratic organisation likes budget cuts. Nowhere; almost never. India under threat makes a good slogan. This is why the Indian military has co-opted certain sections of the media to get its footage of fake firing incidents across the LoC and photographs showing ‘Pakistani’ landmines planted, most incredibly, by Pakistani troops in areas heavily guarded by the Indian military! And the obliging media has swallowed this hook, line and sinker ...

So Indian Defence forces need Pakistan to keep up the defence budget? Pakistan sure thinks quite highly of itself. For starters all the "big ticket items" are going to Airforce & Navy and they are no where near the current fight.

Contrary to what Mr Haider says, getting the media circus in the fight brings out all sorts of bleeding heart "Nobel Peace prize" hopefuls trying to stop IA from doing it's job.

Everyone in India is warning that things will hot up in 2014 post Afghan withdrawal and PA will turn east. So yes. this is just a start of lot of bloodshed.

Doktor

24 Aug 13,, 22:26

Everyone in India is warning that things will hot up in 2014 post Afghan withdrawal and PA will turn east. So yes. this is just a start of lot of bloodshed.
Depends who you read. It will heat up on Pakistani west as well.

lemontree

25 Aug 13,, 06:13

Depends who you read. It will heat up on Pakistani west as well.

The question is how? and who would be the players.

Doktor

25 Aug 13,, 11:06

The question is how? and who would be the players.

I am sure you can find plethora of scenarios, ranging from Talibans/ANA to Pakistan/India with all the tribes in between taking sides.

Have not yet read one report where it foresees peaceful, relaxed A-stan post 2014, nor one which puts Pakistan on "We don't give a damn" position.

Double Edge

25 Aug 13,, 11:54

So Indian Defence forces need Pakistan to keep up the defence budget?
Indian defence forces need the govt to release funds so they can get what they want. That process seems to take forever given LT's posts here. What about those artillery guns, have they decided who to go with or is GOI still too worried about 'corruption'.

Army got to compete with other services to get a share of the funds.

If the media can help expedite arms procurements by creating bogeys so civvies loosen up the purse strings, then so much the better :)

n21

25 Aug 13,, 16:57

Indian defence forces need the govt to release funds so they can get what they want. That process seems to take forever given LT's posts here. What about those artillery guns, have they decided who to go with or is GOI still too worried about 'corruption'.

Army got to compete with other services to get a share of the funds.

If the media can help expedite arms procurements by creating bogeys so civvies loosen up the purse strings, then so much the better :)

We haven't bought a proper gun for the past 30 years. Within that 30 years, hundreds of Indian soldiers and civilians have died in the conflict with Pakistan. ... yet we haven't bought one. And This is just a artillery gun!

Trust me .No bogey is going to loose GoI purse string.

India is lucky to have an adversary like PA. It requires PA trying out stuff like Kargil, which atleast embarrasses GoI into funding national defence.

Remember the CoS IA saying during Kargil, "we will fight with whatever we have".

Firestorm

26 Aug 13,, 19:55

Indian defence forces need the govt to release funds so they can get what they want. That process seems to take forever given LT's posts here. What about those artillery guns, have they decided who to go with or is GOI still too worried about 'corruption'.

Army got to compete with other services to get a share of the funds.

If the media can help expedite arms procurements by creating bogeys so civvies loosen up the purse strings, then so much the better :)

What bogey has the media created? Actually they have behaved very unlike themselves this time and reported all the facts about the border attacks. And the problem with defense procurement in India isn't always lack of funds. There were funds available for artillery procurement. It hasn't gone through because the MoD banned all the foreign suppliers and cancelled tenders the moment a single newspaper article quoted an "anonymous source" alleging corruption. A hangover of the Bofors fiasco combined with clearly planted articles in the media. The media has actually proved counter-productive to the army's procurement attempts.

I also wouldn't discount the possibility that elements within the government hell bent on forgiving pakistan for all its transgressions were deliberately sabotaging military procurement efforts to keep it weak. They would then be able to retain the option of telling the people that no decisive action against Pakistan is possible because we aren't militarily prepared to carry it out.

Agnostic Muslim

19 Sep 13,, 16:11

Commentary by Wajahat S Khan pointing out the (equal) culpability of the Indian Army in provoking LoC clashes and mutilating soldiers from the opposing side while influencing histrionics in the Indian media:

Once upon a time in the valley of death

Part - I Zero protocol

Wajahat S Khan
Thursday, September 19, 2013
From Print Edition

Once upon a time in the valley of deathOnce upon a time, a grandmother from a border village that lay in a bleeding valley contested by two rival lands crossed over to the other side to go meet her sons. Her departure was noticed by fellow villagers, who in turn reported it to the local commander. The commander, disturbed that an old woman who lived in his area of responsibility had eluded his soldiers and fences and moreover, embarrassed him, started building fortifications near where she had breached the border. Never on his watch, swore he, would another grandmother cross over to the enemy.

In the real world, the Indian press would report that 70-year-old Reshma Bi crossed over to Pakistani-administered Azad Kashmir in September 2011, from the village of Charonda in Indian-held J&K. Reshma’s flight “set off alarms” at the Uri-headquartered 19 Infantry Division, which would allow the 9 Maratha Light Infantry, the Indian army unit overseeing the area, to start the construction of observation bunkers “inside a week” of her departure which, according to Indian police cited in January 10, 2013’s The Hindu, was prompted by “the hope of living out her last years with her family” across the LoC. It was an innocuous beginning to a terrible clash.

Though his orders to his men were to work stealthily, soon enough, the enemy noticed what the commander was doing. Now, according to an old pact, the commander wasn’t supposed to be doing what he was doing at all so close to the border, grandmother or good weather. For years, such rules had been respected to keep the peace. But despite the enemy’s warnings, he continued building his fortifications.

In the real world, The Hindu – India’s newspaper of record – would report that Indian commanders “conceded that the construction was in violation of the ceasefire” of 2003 – which has largely held for the last decade – but Indian soldiers “refused to stop work, arguing that the posts faced out towards the village, posing no threat to Pakistan.” Eventually, The Hindu would report, the construction “provoked furious protests from Pakistani troops”, followed by “announcements over a public address system demanding Indian troops end the construction work”.

Soon enough, the enemy did what enemies usually do when provoked: retaliate. The commander’s men retreated back to their well-protected positions, but some poor villagers got killed in the assault that the angry enemy unleashed. Nobody noticed, as poor villagers from this bleeding land died all the time this way, but only when the commander’s boss, a more important commander, got whiff of this bloody situation unravelling over months did things take a decisive turn. Even though his men had provoked the other side, the more important commander decided to take the fight to the enemy and show them who’s boss. And so he did. That’s when things got heated up.

In the real world, the situation escalated in October 2012. Eventually, Pakistan’s retaliatory actions against the bunker construction would lead the Indians to a tipping point, when on January 6, 2013, India’s 161 Brigade commander G S Rawat “sought and obtained permission for aggressive action against the Pakistani position from where his troops were being targeted”. It’s not clear whether the Indians crossed over to attack the Pakistani position (India officially denied it, though an Indian official would be quoted in The Hindu saying “in the heat of fighting, these things have been known to happen” from both sides). The bottom-line is: Pakistani soldiers were dead.

This wasn’t the first time in recent memory that fire had been exchanged over India’s construction of outposts violating the ceasefire. In the summer of 2012, the Krishna Ghati sector saw fighting as Pakistan protested on the same premise. Back in 2008, both sides reported losses in Handwara, again because of “disputes over the construction of new fortifications around an Indian position, code-named Eagle Post.” So if this was just a rinse-and-repeat LoC face-off, triggered by an Indian bunker-buildup followed by Pakistani retaliation, why did it all go south in January 2013?

Even though he attacked the enemy successfully and killed its men, so hurried was the commander’s attack that he even left behind some equipment in his daring assault. Maybe crossing over wasn’t his fault, for the fervour of battle makes it tough to keep track of the rules, especially when grandmothers are involved.

But, most importantly, the commander had underestimated how enraged the enemy would be about the escalation, because what happened next, according to the commander’s army (the enemy would just deny it), would give his countrymen nightmares: The enemy, the story went, in its thirst for revenge, crossed over in the darkness of night and butchered his soldiers, taking back their heads as a prize – or so claimed his high command. Perhaps the enemy too had lost track of the rules of engagement in the fog of war.

In the real world, after India’s ‘raid’ on January 6 (which the Indian Army claimed was not an across-the-border engagement, but still an engagement), the narrative would become the classic, Indo-Pak he-said-she-said game, with a twist. Shouting incursion, ISPR would release pictures of an Indian pistol and equipment left behind in the alleged incursion. Meanwhile, a new, minted-in-India term, the ‘Border Action Team’, which New Delhi would claim is a new formation combining “Pakistani jihadists and Special Forces”, would dominate the Indian narrative. Pakistan would protest the ‘dastardly’ aggression. India would shout ‘mutilation’. Meanwhile, the Mendhar sector’s ‘beheading’ would become the new diplomatic black.

The heralds and soothsayers had warned of this moment: headless soldiers would bring on a larger war, where the earth would split, the mountains would melt, and history would end. And so the soothsayers and bards would go to their pens and platforms and shout that the war to end all wars was coming, and commanders far more important than the one who had started it all thumped their chests and throttled their birds of steel.

In the real world, high commissioners would be called in, flag meetings would fail, and India would expectedly reject Pakistan’s proposal for a UN probe. Only after Praveen Swami’s game-changing exclusive for The Hindu, which would connect the dots of the fighting back to a lonely grandmother and the bunker construction, would the narrative shift in India. But Swami would also trace another incident (in Karnah, 2012) where Indian Special Forces allegedly beheaded Pakistani troops in a tit-for-tat response, also shattering the Indian myth that the ‘beheadings’ were just a Pakistani habit. So, despite a raging, military-sourced media onslaught by India – never really matched by Pakistan’s primetime divas – the war of wars never came.

But 2013’s Battle of January is remarkably different from the more recent Guns of August. Following The Hindu’s premise, January is clearly a tactical miscalculation from the Indian side that escalated as one side kept violating ceasefire terms while the other kept retaliating. Think of it like a game of chicken, played over months, which started mildly but ended tragically, as neither side wanted to back down.

Largely irrelevant is if the feared BATs do or don’t exist; it’s more relevant that the Indians thought they existed, and even more importantly, the sick habit of ‘mutilating’ the enemy was an admitted Indian trait, not just an alleged Pakistani one. Yet, the Indian Army continued to escalate the face-off by building their fortifications and ratcheting up tensions, triggering Pakistani retaliation, BAT, beheadings or whatever.

However, the recent August tensions saw a larger, less tactical game at play. And unlike last winter, both Islamabad and Rawalpindi claim that New Delhi’s latest moves are geared less around grandmothers and more around grand designs.

To be continued

Once upon a time in the valley of death - Wajahat S Khan (http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-9-202998-Once-upon-a-time-in-the-valley-of-death)

antimony

19 Sep 13,, 17:45

Gutter trash, utterly sensationalist meant to appease a certain type of readership,and suited to be printed on a specific type of paper, that is soft, strong and thoroughly absorbent

A few reasons why so:

Utter confusion between the "Imaginary land" and the "real world"
What the hell is "newspaper of record"?
Soon enough, the enemy did what enemies usually do when provoked: retaliate. : So the retaliation to border post construction is firing? Maybe he should have looked up the definition of retaliate

Agnostic Muslim

19 Sep 13,, 18:08

Gutter trash, utterly sensationalist meant to appease a certain type of readership,and suited to be printed on a specific type of paper, that is soft, strong and thoroughly absorbent

A few reasons why so:

Utter confusion between the "Imaginary land" and the "real world"
The distinctions are pretty easy to grasp - try reading it again.

What the hell is "newspaper of record"?
Does it matter?

Soon enough, the enemy did what enemies usually do when provoked: retaliate. : So the retaliation to border post construction is firing? Maybe he should have looked up the definition of retaliate

'Retaliate' by using force to damage/destroy the structures being constructed in violation of the ceasefire agreement once all 'diplomatic' efforts had failed - nothing wrong here either.

antimony

19 Sep 13,, 19:08

The distinctions are pretty easy to grasp - try reading it again.

If you have preconceived notions, yes, I am sure it is

Does it matter?

Does the ability to express something clearly without resorting to made up jargon matter, for a serious journalist?

'Retaliate' by using force to damage/destroy the structures being constructed in violation of the ceasefire agreement once all 'diplomatic' efforts had failed - nothing wrong here either.

So you are saying (or quoting) that all avenues (including flag meetings etc.) had failed and the PA had no option but to strike with force? And you (or your pet author) has positive proof of that or is ISPR (news spinner of record) being recycled?

Agnostic Muslim

19 Sep 13,, 19:30

If you have preconceived notions, yes, I am sure it is[It should be pretty clear even without any 'preconceived notions'.

Does the ability to express something clearly without resorting to made up jargon matter, for a serious journalist?
The Hindu is generally considered to be one of the better newspapers in India by many in and outside of Pakistan - the phrase 'newspaper of record' was probably made in that context - whether you agree with that view or not does not change the arguments made by the author.

So you are saying (or quoting) that all avenues (including flag meetings etc.) had failed and the PA had no option but to strike with force? And you (or your pet author) has positive proof of that or is ISPR (news spinner of record) being recycled?
Where exactly did you get the impression that Wajahat S Khan is my 'pet author' or that the account is an 'ISPR news spinner of record' regurgitation? Just because the account contradicts the propaganda many Indians are brainwashed with? This is what some reputed Indian journalist published in the 'newspaper of record' has claimed:

Exclusive Tit-for-tat actions over a case of border crossing

Indian bunker construction on the northern reaches of the Line of Control — initiated after a grandmother crossed into Pakistan-administered Kashmir to be with her sons — sparked off a spiral of violence which culminated in the brutal killing of two soldiers in an ambush earlier this week, highly placed military and government sources have told The Hindu.

The clashes, among the worst on the Line of Control since a ceasefire went into place, have provoked fears that the ceasefire may melt down. In India, news that the two soldiers were beheaded has provoked widespread outrage and calls for large-scale military retaliation.

Innocuous origins

However, the officials who spoke to The Hindu had a very different account — of how a relatively innocuous incident spiralled into a series of murderous clashes, before culminating in the killing of Lance-Naik Sudhakar Singh and Lance-Naik Hemraj. Both armies, the officials said, engaged in aggressive action, driven by the still-fraught situation on the Line of Control.

Early in September, 70-year old Reshma Bi, left the village of Charonda, near Uri, to live with her sons and grandchildren across the Line of Control.

Ms. Reshma and her husband Ibrahim Lohar, a highly-placed military source said, had remained in Charonda after their sons crossed into Pakistan-administered Kashmir several years ago, to escape police investigations of their alleged role in cross-border trafficking. Police officers contacted by The Hindu said that Ms. Reshma appeared to have left in the hope of living out her last years with her family.

Ms. Reshma’s September 11 flight, a senior Srinagar-based military official said, set off alarms at the Uri-headquartered 19 infantry brigade. There, the incident was seen as highlighting vulnerabilities in defences along this stretch of the Line of Control. Charonda is located within metres of the Line of Control, outside of the three-layer counter-infiltration fencing which runs along the frontier.

Inside of a week after Ms. Reshma’s departure, troops of the 9 Maratha Light Infantry began constructing observations bunkers around Charonda, seeking to monitor the movement of villagers.

The construction work — barred by the terms of the Line of Control ceasefire which India and Pakistan agreed on in 2003 — provoked furious protests from Pakistani troops. Indian commanders, the military source said, conceded that the construction was in violation of the ceasefire.

However, they refused to stop work, arguing that the posts faced out towards the village, posing no threat to Pakistan. Early in October, the official said, tensions began to escalate. Pakistan even made announcements over a public address system, demanding that Indian troops end the construction work.

Following the announcement, shells followed. Pakistani troops fired mortar and high-calibre automatic weapons at Indian forward positions. The fire missed its intended target, but killed three villagers, 25-year-old Mohammad Shafi Khatana, 20-year-old Shaheena Bano, and a ninth-grade school student, Liaqat Ali. In the weeks leading up to the New Year, military sources said, hardly a week went by without occasional shots being fired at troops headed to the new observation posts.

Finally, on January 6, matters came to a head. Following a low-grade exchange of fire that night, 19 Infantry Division commander Gulab Singh Rawat sought and obtained permission for aggressive action against the Pakistani position from where his troops were being targeted.

Pakistan insists its post, Sawan Patra, was raided by Indian troops. India has denied the allegation. “None of our troops crossed the Line of Control,” said Jagdish Dahiya, an Indian army spokesperson.

Either way, though, a Pakistani soldier was dead before the shooting ended — and another critically injured.

“Let’s just put it this way,” a senior government official in New Delhi said, “there was no formal permission to stage a cross-border raid to target Sawan Patra. However, in the heat of fighting, these things have been known to happen. Pakistan has done this, and our forces have done this, ever since fighting began in Jammu and Kashmir in 1990.”

Pakistani retaliation

Pakistan chose to retaliate against the Indian action in one of the few sectors on the Line of Control where its troops have a relative tactical advantage. Fighting has been underway in the Krishna Ghati sector, on the southern end of the Haji Pir pass, since June. The skirmishes there had earlier claimed the life of Border Security Force constable P.K. Mishra and Indian Army soldier Harvinder Singh. The fighting in the summer also began with disputes over the construction of new border outposts by India.

Few details have emerged on the attack, but government sources in New Delhi said a Pakistani Border Action Team — assault units that in the past have been reported to consist of both jihadists and members of the élite Special Services Group — are believed to have carried out the attack.

“It is almost certainly a retaliation for what happened in Charonda”, a military official in New Delhi said. “This kind of thing has often happened in the past, though it hasn’t got quite so much media attention.”

Last year, for example, there was fierce fighting Karnah, some 140 kilometres from Srinagar after two Indian soldiers were beheaded in an attack on a forward position by a Border Action Team. Indian special forces responded by targeting a Pakistani forward post, killing several soldiers and, by the account of one military official, which The Hindu could not corroborate independently, beheaded two.

Earlier, in July, 2008, four Pakistani troops and an Indian solider were killed in fighting near Handwara, again because of disputes over the construction of new fortifications around an Indian position, code named Eagle Post. BSF constable Bhanwar Lal was killed in a separate clash along the LoC in Rajouri, while 8 Gurkha Rifles’ Jawashwar Lami Chhame died when jihadists backed by Pakistani troops shelled an Indian forward post in Poonch.

In some cases, fighting and bonhomie have gone hand in hand in different stretches of the LoC. In September 2009, Pakistani military commanders gave their Indian counterparts packets and sweets on the occasion of Eid, even as their soldiers were exchanging fire along the Krishna Ghati sector, as well as on Pargwal island, near Nikowal in Jammu.
Runaway grandmother sparked savage skirmish on LoC - The Hindu (http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/runaway-grandmother-sparked-savage-skirmish-on-loc/article4291426.ece)

Oracle

19 Sep 13,, 19:37

Earlier, in July, 2008, four Pakistani troops and an Indian solider were killed in fighting near Handwara, again because of disputes over the construction of new fortifications around an Indian position, code named Eagle Post. BSF constable Bhanwar Lal was killed in a separate clash along the LoC in Rajouri, while 8 Gurkha Rifles’ Jawashwar Lami Chhame died when jihadists backed by Pakistani troops shelled an Indian forward post in Poonch.

So, it's true afterall, as The Hindu reported it, since The Hindu is generally considered to be one of the better newspapers in India by many in and outside of Pakistan. :whome:

Doktor

19 Sep 13,, 19:40

So, it's true afterall, as The Hindu reported it, since The Hindu is generally considered to be one of the better newspapers in India by many in and outside of Pakistan. :whome:

Don't get too excited, AM is notorious for not agreeing with everything he posts.:fish:

Agnostic Muslim

19 Sep 13,, 19:49

So, it's true afterall, as The Hindu reported it, since The Hindu is generally considered to be one of the better newspapers in India by many in and outside of Pakistan. :whome:
What part of 'the Hindu is generally considered one of the better newspapers in India' did you somehow interpret to imply that 'everything the Hindu publishes is true'?

A reputable Indian journalist, published in one of the more reputable Indian newspapers, quoted Indian government and military sources for the account of the Indian violation of the LoC ceasefire through border post construction and the Pakistani response. If anything, one would expect that the account fed to the Indian journalist by Indian military and government sources was 'sanitized' to some extent in order to not paint then in too harsh of a light. In the same vein, any claims by said 'Indian government and military sources' about the actions of the Pakistani Army would be expected to be 'exaggerated' to paint Pakistan in as bad a light as possible - case in point the excerpt you quoted about 'Jihadists shelling Indian posts' - the 'jihadists' do not have access to artillery along the LoC, so chalk this particular comment down to the usual Indian Army thoughtless propaganda that is easily debunked.

Agnostic Muslim

19 Sep 13,, 19:51

Don't get too excited, AM is notorious for not agreeing with everything he posts.:fish:
I look at it as parsing through the noise, biases etc, determining what is credible and what is not, rather than just swallowing everything 'hook, line and sinker' (to go along with your 'fishing' smiley)....

Doktor

19 Sep 13,, 19:58

I look at it as parsing through the noise, biases etc, determining what is credible and what is not, rather than just swallowing everything 'hook, line and sinker' (to go along with your 'fishing' smiley)....

I don't have a problem with that.

It is annoying when you post something and then you only reply if someone else points out something from the article that's not in line with what you try to prove. To put it more simple, it is hard to guess what you wanna point when you post an article, without your intake on it. We usually do that when in agreement with what's written there.

Agnostic Muslim

19 Sep 13,, 20:13

I don't have a problem with that.

It is annoying when you post something and then you only reply if someone else points out something from the article that's not in line with what you try to prove. To put it more simple, it is hard to guess what you wanna point when you post an article, without your intake on it. We usually do that when in agreement with what's written there.

I did highlight the parts of the article I wanted antimony to focus on as part of my response to his post - I assumed that it would be obvious that the highlighted text in the article was my primary focus.

Doktor

19 Sep 13,, 20:19

I did highlight the parts of the article I wanted antimony to focus on as part of my response to his post - I assumed that it would be obvious that the highlighted text in the article was my primary focus.

It is, but it is not saying you are in disagreement with the rest. You could have just deleted those parts, or put your thoughts on them. That's all I try to say.

Tronic

19 Sep 13,, 20:31

What part of 'the Hindu is generally considered one of the better newspapers in India' did you somehow interpret to imply that 'everything the Hindu publishes is true'?

A reputable Indian journalist, published in one of the more reputable Indian newspapers, quoted Indian government and military sources for the account of the Indian violation of the LoC ceasefire through border post construction and the Pakistani response. If anything, one would expect that the account fed to the Indian journalist by Indian military and government sources was 'sanitized' to some extent in order to not paint then in too harsh of a light. In the same vein, any claims by said 'Indian government and military sources' about the actions of the Pakistani Army would be expected to be 'exaggerated' to paint Pakistan in as bad a light as possible - case in point the excerpt

Most people will nitpick their choice of sources, but you certainly take things to another level, when you dissect your own articles and label one paragraph as "credible", while the next one as "non-credible". I still recall you brushing aside the Pakistani gallery who criticized and put the Pak army under scrutiny as "liberal extremists".

If I was to replicate your behaviour, I could also very easily rebuff your nitpicked lines and paragraphs as opinions of an Indian "liberal extremist", but we know how bullshit that line of reasoning is, no matter which side of the border you sit on. :rolleyes:

I wouldn't mind your views as much if they weren't so preposterously one sided.

you quoted about 'Jihadists shelling Indian posts' - the 'jihadists' do not have access to artillery along the LoC, so chalk this particular comment down to the usual Indian Army thoughtless propaganda that is easily debunked.

Jihadis are armed with mortars, courtesy of the Pak army.

But Kargil showed that PA usually doesn't differentiate much between Pak army and Jihadis. They both serve the same purpose, and back then, even answered to the same command.

Firestorm

19 Sep 13,, 20:32

Yeah, "Jihadis backed by Pakistani Troops" doesn't make sense. "Jihad in the path of Allah" is a part of the PA's official motto. So every Pakistani soldier is by definition a Jihadi. Maybe we could make a distinction between uniformed Jihadis and non-uniformed Jihadis...

Agnostic Muslim

19 Sep 13,, 20:48

Most people will nitpick their choice of sources, but you certainly take things to another level, when you dissect your own articles and label one paragraph as "credible", while the next one as "non-credible". I still recall you brushing aside the Pakistani gallery who criticized and put the Pak army under scrutiny as "liberal extremists".
And I articulated my reasons for those positions, in this thread for the former and elsewhere for the latter.

If I was to replicate your behaviour, I could also very easily rebuff your nitpicked lines and paragraphs as opinions of an Indian "liberal extremist", but we know how bullshit that line of reasoning is, no matter which side of the border you sit on. :rolleyes:

I wouldn't mind your views as much if they weren't so preposterously one sided.
'One sided' views would be those of the Indians on this forum who believe their Army is apparently an infallible entity descended from the heavens and refuse to accept that the Indian military could be guilty of provoking the LoC clashes and engaging in 'barbaric mutilations of soldiers from the opposing side'. If you have reason to believe that the author fabricated his claims of 'quoting Indian government and military officials' I will be more than happy to read through them and reconsider my position regarding the credibility of said journalist, if warranted.

Jihadis are armed with mortars, courtesy of the Pak army.
Which is an excellent example of a 'one sided' and 'ridiculous' statement on your part - insurgents and terrorists have a myriad means to acquire weaponry of all kinds, as seen by the attacks directed against the Pakistani Army in FATA and Balochistan, so on what basis can you claim with such certainty that 'the Jihadis (whatever that term may refer to) are armed with mortars courtesy of the Pak Army'?

But Kargil showed that PA usually doesn't differentiate much between Pak army and Jihadis. They both serve the same purpose, and back then, even answered to the same command.
I thought the Indian position was that the combatants killed in Kargil were Pakistani Army and para-military soldiers, whose bodies Pakistan 'refused to claim', so which is it?

Agnostic Muslim

19 Sep 13,, 20:49

Yeah, "Jihadis backed by Pakistani Troops" doesn't make sense. "Jihad in the path of Allah" is a part of the PA's official motto. So every Pakistani soldier is by definition a Jihadi. Maybe we could make a distinction between uniformed Jihadis and non-uniformed Jihadis...
The term Jihad also applies to a non-violent struggle, so technically any practicing Muslim could be called a 'Jihadi', which means your attempted distinction is a flawed one and inapplicable given the context of your comment.

Doktor

19 Sep 13,, 21:04

The term Jihad also applies to a non-violent struggle, so technically any practicing Muslim could be called a 'Jihadi', which means your attempted distinction is a flawed one and inapplicable given the context of your comment.

PA is non violent organization?

Agnostic Muslim

19 Sep 13,, 21:14

PA is non violent organization?
Where did I say that?

I said that the term 'Jihad' applies to both violent and non-violent struggles, and therefore Firestorm's classification of 'Jihadists' into 'uniformed and non-uniformed' (in the context of 'violent struggle' only) is flawed.

Tronic

19 Sep 13,, 22:45

And I articulated my reasons for those positions, in this thread for the former and elsewhere for the latter.

and here I thought I was a Klingon who read your mind...

'One sided' views would be those of the Indians on this forum who believe their Army is apparently an infallible entity descended from the heavens and refuse to accept that the Indian military could be guilty of provoking the LoC clashes and engaging in 'barbaric mutilations of soldiers from the opposing side'.

Indian army can do all that and more, and yet, it will still not be the aggressor. The terrorist camps are on your side of the border. Until you cease being the world's biggest terror factory, any military sitting on any of your borders will not be the aggressor, but will be seen acting in self defence. Ask the Afghans, Iranians, or heck, even the Chinese!

There's gotta be a better reason than evil neighbours getting a kick out of screwing with innocent Pakistan. :rolleyes:

If you have reason to believe that the author fabricated his claims of 'quoting Indian government and military officials' I will be more than happy to read through them and reconsider my position regarding the credibility of said journalist, if warranted.

Let's see... He's an anti-Indian "liberal extremist", quoting anonymous sources is meaningless and non-credible, or simply, he has an ulterior agenda against the Indian army and is spreading propaganda. Which one of your BS reasoning cards should I pull? I'll let you decide.. :biggrin:

In regards to the author and his report, I just want to give kudos to the Indian army for being proactive on the border.

Which is an excellent example of a 'one sided' and 'ridiculous' statement on your part - insurgents and terrorists have a myriad means to acquire weaponry of all kinds, as seen by the attacks directed against the Pakistani Army in FATA and Balochistan, so on what basis can you claim with such certainty that 'the Jihadis (whatever that term may refer to) are armed with mortars courtesy of the Pak Army'?

Oh, I wouldn't trust the entire world as it's clearly out to malign the good name of Pakistan. It's these crazy anti-Pakistani "liberal extremists" who gave me that idea:

I thought the Indian position was that the combatants killed in Kargil were Pakistani Army and para-military soldiers, whose bodies Pakistan 'refused to claim', so which is it?

No that's just what the rest of the world thinks, but I'm with Pakistan on this one.. They were all Jihadis, and the Pak army only provided moral and artillery support.. :rolleyes: :biggrin:

Agnostic Muslim

19 Sep 13,, 23:41

and here I thought I was a Klingon who read your mind...

You just had to read the comments accompanying the posts you referenced - its not my fault you choose to engage in selective reading.

Indian army can do all that and more, and yet, it will still not be the aggressor.
In the case of violating the terms of the ceasefire over a 'granny crossing the LoC' and constructing bunkers, yes, the Indian Army is the aggressor. In the case of supporting terrorists/insurgents in Junagadh and East Pakistan, yes, the Indian Army/India are the aggressors. Your comment here only further substantiates my point about many of the Indians on this forum clinging to 'one sided views lacking objectivity'.

There's gotta be a better reason than evil neighbours getting a kick out of screwing with innocent Pakistan. :rolleyes:
That is an excellent question for the Afghan government - why their soldiers violated the UN Charter/international law in illegally crossing the Afghan-Pakistan border and killing 'innocent Pakistanis'.

Let's see... He's an anti-Indian "liberal extremist", quoting anonymous sources is meaningless and non-credible, or simply, he has an ulterior agenda against the Indian army and is spreading propaganda. Which one of your BS reasoning cards should I pull? I'll let you decide.. :biggrin:
You are contrasting my criticism of pure 'opinion' by certain Pakistani commentators against an individual quoting current Indian government and military sources, so no, this BS reasoning above is all yours, not mine, though I am not surprised you failed to grasp the nuances involved.

In regards to the author and his report, I just want to give kudos to the Indian army for being proactive on the border. I'll take that as an admission on your part that the journalist was correct when he quoted Indian military and government sources stating that the IA was responsible for this particular series of confrontations across the LoC with their construction of bunkers in violation of the ceasefire agreement.

And, please, feel free to quote my comments on those specific statements by Zardari and Musharraf to establish whatever it is you are trying to establish.

antimony

20 Sep 13,, 03:19

PA is non violent organization?

Yes, they do practice non-violence w.r.t to the Haqqani network, Afghan Taliban, LeT, HM and a variety of other sorts of scum

Oracle

20 Sep 13,, 05:07

Don't get too excited, AM is notorious for not agreeing with everything he posts.:fish:

I know Dok, and here too it's been done exactly the same way what I had in mind. Seriously, there must be something wrong in and with Pakistan that positivity and Pakistan doesn't hold true in the same breath. The Arabs had a spring, Pakistan loves winter, covering it up with multiple blankets of complicity, due to the denial mentality that has creeped in for all their failures as a responsible state. Complicit and incompetent.

lemontree

20 Sep 13,, 05:46

Gutter trash, utterly sensationalist meant to appease a certain type of readership,and suited to be printed on a specific type of paper, that is soft, strong and thoroughly absorbent....

Exactly, the aspects thrown up in the "Haqqani network & ISI" thread are good enough reason for India to remain firm and hit back till the enemy backs down, because that is the only language he understands. If they want to fight a proxy war, then they damn well be prepared for getting hurt themselves.

The recent incidents have lead to InA to destroy a number of Pak army forward posts, which was never done before. It has shaken them, hence they have calmed down for now.

Agnostic Muslim

20 Sep 13,, 13:23

The recent incidents have lead to InA to destroy a number of Pak army forward posts, which was never done before. It has shaken them, hence they have calmed down for now.
Of course, because the Pakistani Army has no actual combat experience and deploys poorly trained conscripts from local farms who 'are shaken up' by what are essentially routine LoC exchanges of fire while the 'descended from the heavens Indian Army soldiers' catch the bullets and shells fired their way with their teeth and spit them back at the Pakistani forward posts, thereby 'shaking them' even further ... :rolleyes:

antimony

20 Sep 13,, 15:51

Of course, because the Pakistani Army has no actual combat experience and deploys poorly trained conscripts from local farms who 'are shaken up' by what are essentially routine LoC exchanges of fire while the 'descended from the heavens Indian Army soldiers' catch the bullets and shells fired their way with their teeth and spit them back at the Pakistani forward posts, thereby 'shaking them' even further ... :rolleyes:

Is this commentary from the newspaper of record again, or are you trying your hand at polemic now?

Agnostic Muslim

20 Sep 13,, 16:18

Is this commentary from the newspaper of record again, or are you trying your hand at polemic now?
Oh, that was merely a response to one of the resident purveyors of IA braggadocio ... :whome:

antimony

20 Sep 13,, 17:23

Oh, that was merely a response to one of the resident purveyors of IA braggadocio ... :whome:

I see...

I also noted that you choose not to answer this question:

So you are saying (or quoting) that all avenues (including flag meetings etc.) had failed and the PA had no option but to strike with force?

The Hindu report mentions something about shouting with loudspeakers, no mention of formal flag meetings etc. It is also interesting that the PA loses its shit on bunkers built on the Indian side, but will not respond militarily to drone attacks that kills its civilians.

Oracle

20 Sep 13,, 17:50

Oh, that was merely a response to one of the resident purveyors of IA braggadocio ... :whome:

He was an Indian Army Captain, not a purveyor. This disrespect and insult thrown at ex-servicemen shows your intentions. As about vanity, AM, why don't this board has or more interestingly, why don't you invite some PA Professionals to counter the arguments of LT, where you so famously start to troll when you have nothing to argue about?

IA braggadocio? Well, IA won all wars with Pakistan except the ones taught in Pakistan's Islamic Madrassas. Get a grip.

Agnostic Muslim

20 Sep 13,, 19:23

IA braggadocio? .
Yes, my description of comments such as this, "The recent incidents have lead to InA to destroy a number of Pak army forward posts, which was never done before. It has shaken them, hence they have calmed down for now", is apt.

And as far as your comment about 'disrespect, insulting etc' is concerned, offer that advice to the gentleman you are defending who chose to do exactly that (disrespect and insult) the Pakistani Army with the aforementioned comment of his, and as you and other Indians have done on multiple other occasions.

I criticized an individual on the basis of his 'disrespectful boasts' - you lot insult and denigrate the institution of the Pakistan Army and its soldiers consistently, day in and day out, and then have the gall to try and protest when one of you is called out for it.

Blademaster

20 Sep 13,, 20:03

He was an Indian Army Captain, not a purveyor. This disrespect and insult thrown at ex-servicemen shows your intentions. As about vanity, AM, why don't this board has or more interestingly, why don't you invite some PA Professionals to counter the arguments of LT, where you so famously start to troll when you have nothing to argue about?

IA braggadocio? Well, IA won all wars with Pakistan except the ones taught in Pakistan's Islamic Madrassas. Get a grip.

The best way to help him get a grip is to post a picture of Gen. Naizi signing the surrender documents in Dacca in 1971. :pop::whome:

Tronic

20 Sep 13,, 22:54

You just had to read the comments accompanying the posts you referenced - its not my fault you choose to engage in selective reading.

If I didn't read your "debates", I wouldn't be pointing out to you your blatant hypocrisy.

In the case of violating the terms of the ceasefire over a 'granny crossing the LoC' and constructing bunkers, yes, the Indian Army is the aggressor.

Constructing observation posts to plug gaps in our borders is Indian army's aggression. :rolleyes: I guess you have a valid reason for concern, as it presents a new danger for infiltrating Jihadis..

The alarm bells ringing in IA HQs after the alleged discovery of a granny crossing over to be with her fugitive drug smuggling sons, is due to a phenomena, heavily lacking in Pakistan, called 'enforcing your borders'!

If a granny can elude the IA and cross over into Pakistan, that means there is a gap in security which can be exploited by unwanted terrorist scum from Pakistan to enter India and kill Indians. So to enforce our borders to protect our people from the terrorist scum of your country is not called aggression. But I can understand why you would be peeved... :rolleyes:

In the case of supporting terrorists/insurgents in Junagadh and East Pakistan, yes, the Indian Army/India are the aggressors.

Kingdom of Junagadh went to war against the Kingdoms of Babriawad and Mangrol.. Indian army came to the assistance of the latter kingdoms and steamrolled over Junagadh. Who were the insurgents? It was an invasion by the Indian army. Just the same manner the Pakistani army invaded the independent Khanate of Kalat, and the Princely State of Jammu and Kashmir. I still contend that both India and Pakistan acted as imperialist powers gobbling up minor kingdoms which expressed a desire to remain independent. It is only you who sees one country's acts as imperialist, while another's as righteous. That is why I call you out for your hypocritical BS.

As for East Pakistan.. Indian support to Mukti Bahini guerillas and Pakistani support to HM, LeT, JeM, HuJI, etc, is nothing alike. To be equated with India, openly profess that your army trains, arms and shelters those militant groups and stop playing a double game with the world. That is what India did in 1971; took full responsibility of fathering, training, arming and sheltering the Mukti Bahini. Pakistan is nothing alike.

Your comment here only further substantiates my point about many of the Indians on this forum clinging to 'one sided views lacking objectivity'.

What can I say, it's very hard to replicate your excellent examples of objectivity.

That is an excellent question for the Afghan government - why their soldiers violated the UN Charter/international law in illegally crossing the Afghan-Pakistan border and killing 'innocent Pakistanis'.

Funny, because the Indian, US, ISAF or NATO troops could probably answer for the Afghans of why any army would feel the need to hit targets within Pakistan.

You are contrasting my criticism of pure 'opinion' by certain Pakistani commentators against an individual quoting current Indian government and military sources, so no, this BS reasoning above is all yours, not mine, though I am not surprised you failed to grasp the nuances involved.

Which "Indian government and military sources" did the author quote? As I recall, you have turned down such anonymous quotes in the past when they didn't align with your agenda. But since using those quotes pushes your agenda now, it's apparently ok to use them..

I'll take that as an admission on your part that the journalist was correct when he quoted Indian military and government sources

How can I know or say for sure that the journo is correct? But I agree that his story sounds very plausible.. I've never said I had anything against that journo or that article. I just wanted to drive home my point of your blatant and nauseating hypocrisy.

stating that the IA was responsible for this particular series of confrontations across the LoC with their construction of bunkers in violation of the ceasefire agreement.

Possibly true. Still doesn't make IA an aggressor.

And, please, feel free to quote my comments on those specific statements by Zardari and Musharraf to establish whatever it is you are trying to establish.

Oh, like I give a .. about what you think.

Oracle

21 Sep 13,, 15:38

Yes, my description of comments such as this, "The recent incidents have lead to InA to destroy a number of Pak army forward posts, which was never done before. It has shaken them, hence they have calmed down for now", is apt.

And as far as your comment about 'disrespect, insulting etc' is concerned, offer that advice to the gentleman you are defending who chose to do exactly that (disrespect and insult) the Pakistani Army with the aforementioned comment of his, and as you and other Indians have done on multiple other occasions.

I criticized an individual on the basis of his 'disrespectful boasts' - you lot insult and denigrate the institution of the Pakistan Army and its soldiers consistently, day in and day out, and then have the gall to try and protest when one of you is called out for it.

I see you've quoted parts of everything and anything that suits your purpose. Fine, however, I have quoted your post in its entirety.

First, do you reside by the LoC (?), that you are privy to things unknown to civilians like us? If not, than the Captain's words are to be taken as true until you get us appropriate sources.

Secondly, hilarious as it seems to you that I am defending an IA Captain. Do you really think the good Captain cannot defend himself in a virtual world, where-as at the LoC he might have sniped tens of Pakistani terrorists?

Thirdly, PA & ISI were, are, and in the recent future too, would be supporters of a state policy of terrorism. And much proof of it lies in the open domain. I stated it once in a post, and you didn't engage me, want me to post the same?

What you do not understand is the policy paralysis of the PA to infiltrate Islamic Pakistani terrorists into India, so utterly bad, that they have to resort to Talibanized behaviour. But, afterall, aren't they sides of the same coin?

Of course, because the Pakistani Army has no actual combat experience and deploys poorly trained conscripts from local farms who 'are shaken up' by what are essentially routine LoC exchanges of fire while the 'descended from the heavens Indian Army soldiers' catch the bullets and shells fired their way with their teeth and spit them back at the Pakistani forward posts, thereby 'shaking them' even further ... :rolleyes:

I never said your chaps don't have combat experience, all I said was that they have been clobbered well enough to keep shut. But then, for you, being a spokesperson of a terrorist nation, this must be a difficult reality to digest.

lemontree

22 Sep 13,, 07:58

I criticized an individual on the basis of his 'disrespectful boasts' - you lot insult and denigrate the institution of the Pakistan Army and its soldiers consistently, day in and day out, and then have the gall to try and protest when one of you is called out for it.

Don't worry, I only get insulted by people who matter.

IND76

22 Sep 13,, 17:16

The best way to help him get a grip is to post a picture of Gen. Naizi signing the surrender documents in Dacca in 1971. :pop::whome:

Ho no no thats all Indian conspiracy !. Its imposible for indians to face pak army, dont you know famous quote about "1 pakistani is equal to 10 Indians:red:

Doktor

22 Sep 13,, 21:45

The best way to help him get a grip is to post a picture of Gen. Naizi signing the surrender documents in Dacca in 1971. :pop::whome:
Why bother? Ask for the last victory parade.

Agnostic Muslim

23 Sep 13,, 13:15

If I didn't read your "debates", I wouldn't be pointing out to you your blatant hypocrisy.
You haven't read them, because if you had you would not be harping on 'hypocrisy' still.

Constructing observation posts to plug gaps in our borders is Indian army's aggression.
Yes, if the construction was in violation of the ceasefire agreement.

If a granny can elude the IA and cross over into Pakistan, that means there is a gap in security which can be exploited by unwanted terrorist scum from Pakistan to enter India and kill Indians. That should have been taken into account before the details of the ceasfire agreement were taken into account, and if the ceasefire agreement was found to be lacking, dialog should have been initiated between the two countries to revise the agreement. In the absence of any revision to the ceasefire agreement between India and Pakistan, the construction of structures prohibited in the agreement constitutes a violation of the agreement and therefore constitutes a provocation.

Kingdom of Junagadh went to war against the Kingdoms of Babriawad and Mangrol.. Indian army came to the assistance of the latter kingdoms and steamrolled over Junagadh. Who were the insurgents? It was an invasion by the Indian army. The Indian Army invaded Pakistani territory without any provocation given that the ruler of Junagadh had acceded to Pakistan under the rules governing partition, an accession that was communicated to India and one that India was completely aware of given the details of the diplomatic cables exchanged between India and Pakistan in the run-up to the unprovoked Indian invasion of Pakistani territory of Junagadh.

Just the same manner the Pakistani army invaded the independent Khanate of Kalat, and the Princely State of Jammu and Kashmir. I still contend that both India and Pakistan acted as imperialist powers gobbling up minor kingdoms which expressed a desire to remain independent. It is only you who sees one country's acts as imperialist, while another's as righteous. That is why I call you out for your hypocritical BS.

As for East Pakistan.. Indian support to Mukti Bahini guerillas and Pakistani support to HM, LeT, JeM, HuJI, etc, is nothing alike. To be equated with India, openly profess that your army trains, arms and shelters those militant groups and stop playing a double game with the world. That is what India did in 1971; took full responsibility of fathering, training, arming and sheltering the Mukti Bahini. Pakistan is nothing alike.

Again, try actually reading my posts instead of just going off on a rant - here is my comment again: "In the case of supporting terrorists/insurgents in Junagadh and East Pakistan, yes, the Indian Army/India are the aggressors."

I believe that in between your rants and digressions you agreed with the actual point I made in my comment ...

What can I say, it's very hard to replicate your excellent examples of objectivity.
Flying into a rage against my posts without really trying to understand the point being made will make comprehension difficult.

Funny, because the Indian, US, ISAF or NATO troops could probably answer for the Afghans of why any army would feel the need to hit targets within Pakistan.
So where is the answer? Why were women and children killed? What was the alleged provocation from the 5 individuals massacred by the Afghans?

Which "Indian government and military sources" did the author quote? As I recall, you have turned down such anonymous quotes in the past when they didn't align with your agenda. But since using those quotes pushes your agenda now, it's apparently ok to use them.. The credibility of sources (anonymous or otherwise) depends on the credibility and identity of the journalist. If this were a Pakistani journalist quoting 'anonymous Indian sources' or even 'anonymous Pakistani sources' I wouldn't bother posting anything. However, this is very reputable Indian journalist, published in a very reputable Indian newspaper quoting Indian sources about Indian government/military actions, which is what makes the account credible.

Possibly true. Still doesn't make IA an aggressor.
The side that violates the ceasefire agreement is by default the aggressor.

Oh, like I give a .. about what you think.You brought up those two statements, not me, and I assume you brought up those two statements for a reason - I am merely following up on it and calling your bluff.

Agnostic Muslim

23 Sep 13,, 13:20

I never said your chaps don't have combat experience, all I said was that they have been clobbered well enough to keep shut.
That's the thing, all you have offered is nothing more than chest thumping. No one on the Pakistani side (I am referring to the serving Army officers I am in contact with) stoop to the kind of inane chest-thumping and language you do. Their response to your posts has been dismissive, essentially stating that the recent exchanges along the LoC have been largely 'nothing out of the ordinary, aside from the media hype'. According to them, the exchanges have been largely restricted to small arms fire and mortars with minimal casualties on either side and no one has a clue about your 'destroyed Pakistani forward posts'.

Quite frankly, when I contrast your chest-thumping posts with the calm responses I get from the PA officers, I have to wonder which side is really the frazzled one ...

Agnostic Muslim

23 Sep 13,, 13:21

Ho no no thats all Indian conspiracy !. Its imposible for indians to face pak army, dont you know famous quote about "1 pakistani is equal to 10 Indians:red:

First, do you reside by the LoC (?), that you are privy to things unknown to civilians like us? If not, than the Captain's words are to be taken as true until you get us appropriate sources.

As was the case with the last post of yours that I quoted excerpts from, this appears to be the only part that is actually relevant to the discussion - please see my last response to Lemontree regarding the views of serving PA Officers that I contacted regarding his claims.

notorious_eagle

24 Sep 13,, 01:35

That's the thing, all you have offered is nothing more than chest thumping. No one on the Pakistani side (I am referring to the serving Army officers I am in contact with) stoop to the kind of inane chest-thumping and language you do. Their response to your posts has been dismissive, essentially stating that the recent exchanges along the LoC have been largely 'nothing out of the ordinary, aside from the media hype'. According to them, the exchanges have been largely restricted to small arms fire and mortars with minimal casualties on either side and no one has a clue about your 'destroyed Pakistani forward posts'.

Quite frankly, when I contrast your chest-thumping posts with the calm responses I get from the PA officers, I have to wonder which side is really the frazzled one ...

I second this statement.

This claim was made by the Indian media, it has not been corroborated by the Pakistani side. Serving Officer and a Security Analyst working with the Defence Ministry(you know them both from PDF) have stated that this news is not true. But there is truth to the fact that IA did use weapons that can be categorized in the medium category, while on the other hand Maj Gen Faheem(GOC Murree) had issued strict orders to use light weapons only if fired upon despite continued requests from local commanders to escalate the matter with medium category weapons.

antimony

24 Sep 13,, 02:18

I second this statement.

This claim was made by the Indian media, it has not been corroborated by the Pakistani side. Serving Officer and a Security Analyst working with the Defence Ministry(you know them both from PDF) have stated that this news is not true. But there is truth to the fact that IA did use weapons that can be categorized in the medium category, while on the other hand Maj Gen Faheem(GOC Murree) had issued strict orders to use light weapons only if fired upon despite continued requests from local commanders to escalate the matter with medium category weapons.

These statements are contradictory:

AM states that the PA side fired because the IA side built illegal bunkers and did not dismantle on warning
NE states that the PA side was under orders to fire only in retaliation

This claim was made by the Indian media, it has not been corroborated by the Pakistani side. Serving Officer and a Security Analyst working with the Defence Ministry(you know them both from PDF) have stated that this news is not true.

I have already posted videos to show actual footage of firing on PA forward posts opposite KG sector (Poonch). So these are not empty claims. One can understand why your officers are in denial of losses suffered, the same denial was seen when your Army refused to collect NLI soldiers who were KIA in Kargil.

In the footage you can make out the ATGM fire, L-70 fire and the tracers from MMGs.

notorious_eagle

24 Sep 13,, 11:31

These statements are contradictory:

AM states that the PA side fired because the IA side built illegal bunkers and did not dismantle on warning
NE states that the PA side was under orders to fire only in retaliation

So which is it ?

The orders were issued out after the skirmishes started. Gen Faheem had issued strict orders to only use light weapons(guns and mortars) and fire when fired upon. As Captain LT has posted, IA was using L-70AA and ATGMS while the PA side was only restricted to light arms.

notorious_eagle

24 Sep 13,, 11:39

I have already posted videos to show actual footage of firing on PA forward posts opposite KG sector (Poonch). So these are not empty claims.

Sir

I have already stated it before that the IA was using heavier calibre of weapons compared to PA. There is no doubt that PA took heavy line of fire, but there is no proof to suggest that a number of PA posts were destroyed as you claimed in Post #192. Something like that would have not gone unanswered from the PA side. PA would have retaliated with heavier calibre of weapons if the IA had succeeded in destroying a number of PA posts.

One can understand why your officers are in denial of losses suffered, the same denial was seen when your Army refused to collect NLI soldiers who were KIA in Kargil.

Sir please, lets not get into this because we will be derailing the topic. Lets drop this holier than thou attitude, because its not like the other side is made of angels. Ketchups anyone!

In the footage you can make out the ATGM fire, L-70 fire and the tracers from MMGs.

No doubt, i had already conceded this fact before you posted the video.

Agnostic Muslim

24 Sep 13,, 12:36

These statements are contradictory:

AM states that the PA side fired because the IA side built illegal bunkers and did not dismantle on warning
NE states that the PA side was under orders to fire only in retaliation

So which is it ?
NE is referring to the recent exchange of fire in the aftermath of the 5 Indian soldiers killed on the LoC. The illegal bunker construction by the IA dates back a lot further.

Agnostic Muslim

24 Sep 13,, 12:38

I have already posted videos to show actual footage of firing on PA forward posts opposite KG sector (Poonch). So these are not empty claims.
No, what it appears like (from the video) is an 'empty post' - was it even an old abandoned Pakistani post or one on the Indian side of the LoC, blown up for the TV cameras and media hype?

lemontree

24 Sep 13,, 12:58

There is no doubt that PA took heavy line of fire, but there is no proof to suggest that a number of PA posts were destroyed as you claimed in Post #192.
The videos show you the posts left in ruins. This does not mean that they are not occupied. The bunkers destroyed are the forward bunkers, the living bunkers in these forward posts are in the rear and would be safe.

Something like that would have not gone unanswered from the PA side. PA would have retaliated with heavier calibre of weapons if the IA had succeeded in destroying a number of PA posts.
The escalation has always been from PA side, the PA units freely use RPGs and 82mm mortars, while MMG/HMG fire is routine. This is the first time IA has used L-70s on PA forward posts, although these have been deployed there since a long time. During my time, 17 years ago I had a 2 x ZSU-23 at one of my posts, but we were never allowed to use it. This time the IA was allowed to let loose.

BTW, the ketchup colonel was not our national statement - that is poor analogy.

Agnostic Muslim

24 Sep 13,, 13:06

This is the first time IA has used L-70s on PA forward posts, although these have been deployed there since a long time. During my time, 17 years ago I had a 2 x ZSU-23 at one of my posts, but we were never allowed to use it. This time the IA was allowed to let loose.

And why do you think the PA would not respond in the same tone had the IA actually inflicted significant damage to PA infrastructure and/or casualties?

lemontree

24 Sep 13,, 13:08

No, what it appears like (from the video) is an 'empty post' - was it even an old abandoned Pakistani post or one on the Indian side of the LoC, blown up for the TV cameras and media hype?
Looks like the Pak unit actually abandoned their posts and ran away. Could you send them back please?

Agnostic Muslim

24 Sep 13,, 13:12

Looks like the Pak unit actually abandoned their posts and ran away. Could you send them back please?
Sorry, I think they were IA soldiers dressed up in Pakistani kit to add to the ambiance of the entire 'show' put up by the IA to make it look like they were actually doing something in front of the Indian audience. Try checking with your IA peers to see who played 'dress-up'.

Doktor

24 Sep 13,, 13:35

Guys,

Can you stop the chest trumpeting and/or CTs?

The thread was somewhat educational, but got in a wrong direction.

Agnostic Muslim

24 Sep 13,, 13:43

The Indian Defense Ministry's response to Praveen Swami's original piece and Swami's response to their criticism was published in The Hindu and is below:

In a ‘Media Clarification’ issued on Thursday, the Public Relations Officer, Ministry of Defence, Srinagar, says:

1. Please refer to the news article “Runway grandmother sparked savage skirmish on LoC” by Praveen Swami, published in The Hindu on January 10, 2013. Certain aspects mentioned in the article are factually incorrect.

2. First, as per the article, 70-year-old Reshma Bi had crossed the Line of Control on 26 September, 2011. Therefore, the recent cease fire violations cannot be linked to an incident 16 months old.

3. As mentioned in the article, no announcements were made by the Pakistan Army over a public address system at Uri demanding a halt to any construction work.

5. Also it is denied that any permission was ever sought by the GOC for aggressive action against any Pakistani post. No LC transgression has been resorted to by the Indian army in Uri Sector on 06 Jan 13, as alleged.

6. Pakistan has carried out cease fire violations on night 05/06 Jan and controlled retaliation was carried out by own side on January 6, 2013.

Praveen Swami replies:

I indeed erred in designating Brigadier G.S. Rawat as the head of the 19 Infantry Division; he was in fact the Brigade Commander of the 161 Brigade in Uri, which is part of the 19 Infantry Division. The error is regretted.

However, the rest of the Defence Ministry clarification makes little sense. It states that “as per the article, 70-year-old Reshma Bi had crossed the Line of Control on 26 September, 2011.” There is no such claim in the article. It in fact states that she crossed the Line of Control on September 11, 2012. That means there were barely six weeks between her departure and the firing, not sixteen months.

Secondly, the Defence Ministry disputes that the Pakistan Army made announcements over its public address system asking India to cease the bunker construction that followed. However, it does not dispute that it began constructing bunkers — the bone of contention which led to the clash.

Finally, it states that The Hindu charged it with staging a cross-border raid on January 6, 2013. The Hindu story made no such claim: it merely states that Pakistan alleges that Indian troops staged such a raid, along with India’s denial of this allegation.

Thus, the Defence Ministry denial concedes all key elements of The Hindu’s article — i.e., that India constructed bunkers around Charonda, which provoked a Pakistani response, leading to a clash in which Pakistani soldiers were killed, and Indian soldiers were killed in retaliation.

Interestingly, the Defence Ministry does not deny other elements of the story, such as the suggestion that both sides have engaged in cross border raids, which have on occasion included beheadings.

I am not aware of any further communication between the Indian government and Praveen Swami/The Hindu on this issue.

Agnostic Muslim

24 Sep 13,, 14:03

The conclusion of Wajahat S Khan's piece on the events around the death of 5 Indian soldiers in Kashmir that led to the latest series of clashes. WSK does quote 'anonymous Pakistani intelligence sources' so let me state outright that I am not suggesting those claims be taken to be true without any further validation. The alleged Pakistani intelligence assessment into the events surrounding the death of the 5 Indian soldiers offers an alternate narrative to the one pushed by the Indian side:

Once upon a time in the valley of death

Part - II Zero protocol
Wajahat S Khan
Friday, September 20, 2013

At 0930 hours last August 6, the Directorate of Military Operations of the Pakistan Army and its counterpart in India conducted a scheduled hotline call. The conversation between the two MO directorates – ostensibly, the pivotal ‘ops’ nerve centres for both armies – lasted a few minutes as the rival officers discussed routine matters and clicked off.

At 0949 hours, Omar Abdullah, the young, tech savvy chief minister of Indian-held Jammu & Kashmir would tweet: “Was briefed early this morning about news that 5 of our soldiers had been killed on the LoC. My heartfelt condolences to their next of kin.”

There was a good question to ask that fateful day: Why didn’t India’s MO Directorate raise the issue of the incident with its counterpart that morning – which the CM of IHJ&K would tweet about a few minutes later – especially as they were already connected officially through their hotline?

A Pakistani intelligence summary would point out the discrepancy: “[The] Indian side did not highlight the incident whereas as per practice this should have been the most important issue in the hotline call”. A Pakistani security source would add: “If the CM knows, and their MO doesn’t raise it, it means the MO either doesn’t know, which we can’t really believe because it is an Indian Army matter, or that they thought it was something else and not worth taking up with our MO.”

Back to August 6. After the news, and hell, broke loose on Indian media, and details began to emerge (five soldiers belonging to 21 Bihar Regiment and 14 Maratha Light Infantry had been ‘ambushed’ and killed and a sixth one injured around 0100 hours while on patrol in Chakan Da Bagh/Poonch sector), the Indian MO’s office would eventually put in a request for another hotline call that evening – “almost nineteen hours after the alleged incident”, the source would add.

That discrepancy would put Pakistani intelligence into overdrive. The Indian Army’s behaviour was unusual. ‘Special’ requests from India’s MO had been submitted before, but they usually preceded mainstream and social media reports. Also, what were six soldiers (one had “managed to hide himself” according to The Hindu) of an ‘Area Domination Team’ from two different units doing out of typical formation? Infantry patrols usually move around in a group of ten or eleven (structured and known as a ‘section’ in both armies) at the very least.

Also, if the troops were in the vulnerable ‘unit transition’ phase, where the outgoing unit is tasked to familiarise the incoming unit with its area of responsibility, even small deployments of soldiers wouldn’t go on patrol at night for that purpose. Interestingly, the same questions were being asked on the margins of the mainstream Indian media.

The next day, at 0930 hours, the especially requested MO hotline call came and the Indians protested. Pakistan’s MO denied any involvement and ISPR issued a press release. But the investigation underway by Pakistani intelligence would lead Rawalpindi in a different direction.

“There were inconsistencies. And then we figured out that incident was initially reported as an IS [internal security] issue,” a military source would say. An intelligence brief would detail: “Five soldiers did die on 6/8/2013, but not in the manner hyped by the Indians. They were probably shot by locals, at point blank range.”

The brief would further postulate: “FIRs are not usually lodged after fire engagements. But there was an FIR lodged in Punch [sic] Police Station (No 113) on 6/8/2013 about the incident, citing the killings. Post-mortem reports also indicate that Indian Army soldiers were shot point blank…while never discharging any rounds from their weapons.” I did see a copy of the Indian FIR, obtained from intelligence officials, but was not able to independently verify the findings of the autopsy reports.

“This is what we think happened,” the intelligence source would conclude. “There were six of them, out of formation. That explains why they went out at night, maybe after a local village girl, as they have in the past. The locals caught them and shot them at point blank range…most possibly they were angry. Remember, no rounds were fired from officially issued weapons, and there were also reports on their media that their weapons were stolen, which is a good alibi. The sixth guy escaped and probably shot himself in the foot. He’s still with the army. They haven’t exposed him to anyone for interviews.”

Regardless of Pakistani intel’s analyses, the days after the incident saw varying descriptions of what happened being floated by different branches of the Indian government: Starting from the furore-creating suo motu statement by Indian Defence Minister A K Antony on August 6, ‘terrorists’, ‘terrorists dressed as regular Pakistani troops’, ‘regulars’, ‘specialist troops’, ‘SSG’s Musa company’, even a ‘combined force’ of Pakistani Special Forces and jihadists (‘Border Action Teams’ according to Indian officials) would be blamed, in slow-motion and over days of briefings and leaks, for the killings.

It would be a messy, agonising war of versions about Pakistan – but between different branches of the Indian government – and would keep India’s noisy media busy and South Asia watchers worried, while providing the Indian opposition with enough batter to fry a government. By the way, the initial FIR about the incident only cited “terrorists”, and not what eventually emerged from New Delhi’s MoD and/or South Block. Eventually, after initial hiccups, all major Indian actors and agencies would get their anti-Pakistan groove back. But why the initial inconsistency about what is, sadly, a routine matter on the LoC?

“The opposite of what the Indian narrative insists about Pakistan is actually happening here,” Sartaj Aziz, advisor for national security and foreign affairs would tell me in a recent television interview. “We are in a transition, but different sides are thinking alike. There is a maturity here regarding India.”

What Aziz wouldn’t say on television is what is being talked about town: that there is an increasing understanding between Rawalpindi and Islamabad that New Delhi is trying to drive a wedge between Pakistan’s new government and it’s old guard.

Critically, as Pakistan’s establishment and elected leaders make extra efforts to shed their ‘bad boy’ image while anticipating 2014 – hosting Hamid Karzai, releasing Taliban prisoners, trying to convince Mullah Umar & Co to talk to the Afghan High Peace Council – both GHQ and the Foreign Office feel that the Indian approach, driven by an aggressive military-media combine (even GoCs are giving press statements in IHJ&K now), is meant to both undermine Pakistan’s international role as a credible peace broker in the Afghan reconciliation process as well as focus international attention on the ‘P-word’: Proxy War. In this worldview, it is feared that the notion that Pakistan will start routing militants away from Afghanistan and into Kashmir – an argument often made in the 1990s and 2000s by New Delhi – is going to be reintroduced as the new, post-2014 narrative in South Asia.

Internally, there is another perceived Indian angle: politics. After Antony’s initially measured statements were denigrated as a boo-boo by a fiery opposition in what is looking like the beginning of the Indian election campaign season, Islamabad assesses that Congress will take the detour – troubled economy, rape scandals, communal riots, bad press et al – to look tough on Pakistan. “Unsurprisingly, Pak-bashing is a safe electoral strategy. But is it good statesmanship?” asked a Foreign Office source.

But there is hope yet for a breakthrough. Pakistan’s Foreign Office is preparing vigorously for a crucial huddle, when Nawaz Sharif and Manmohan Singh will soon bump into each on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. The Foreign Office thinks that particular peace ball is in India’s court for now. “I know Manmohan Singh. Our relationship goes back, way back”, Sartaj Aziz optimistically surmised. “I know he would never miss an opportunity to meet with our Prime Minister. He’s too good a statesman to not give peace a chance.”

Yet, there are still question marks about GHQ and Raiwind’s one-pagedness in other areas: is the APC-driven peace process in play, after Maj-Gen Sanaullah Niazi’s death, and how will it affect military dynamics with India? Who will be the new army chief? And when will the PM’s big ‘let’s trade’ MFN narrative translate into actual trade gains for India and Pakistan? A security official confirmed that “no hardcore consultations” are ongoing in those regards.

Concluded

The writer is a Harvard Kennedy School Fellow and multimedia journalist. Email: wajskhan@gmail.com
Once upon a time in the valley of death - Wajahat S Khan (http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-9-203233-Once-upon-a-time-in-the-valley-of-death)

Tronic

24 Sep 13,, 21:29

“This is what we think happened,” the intelligence source would conclude. “There were six of them, out of formation. That explains why they went out at night, maybe after a local village girl, as they have in the past. The locals caught them and shot them at point blank range…most possibly they were angry. Remember, no rounds were fired from officially issued weapons, and there were also reports on their media that their weapons were stolen, which is a good alibi. The sixth guy escaped and probably shot himself in the foot. He’s still with the army. They haven’t exposed him to anyone for interviews.”

Ohhh.... Wajahat... :whome:

WSK does quote 'anonymous Pakistani intelligence sources' so let me state outright that I am not suggesting those claims be taken to be true without any further validation.

lol... Good one.

antimony

24 Sep 13,, 22:38

The conclusion of Wajahat S Khan's piece on the events around the death of 5 Indian soldiers in Kashmir that led to the latest series of clashes. WSK does quote 'anonymous Pakistani intelligence sources' so let me state outright that I am not suggesting those claims be taken to be true without any further validation. The alleged Pakistani intelligence assessment into the events surrounding the death of the 5 Indian soldiers offers an alternate narrative to the one pushed by the Indian side:

And yet you choose to highlight the juicy bits. This is probably the first time I am seeing such an open admission of dis-ingenuity. What is the objective, just throwing mud and seeing if it sticks?

Agnostic Muslim

24 Sep 13,, 22:44

And yet you choose to highlight the juicy bits.

The highlighted parts of the article are the 'alternate narrative', as pointed out in my 'disclaimer' preceding the article, or did you and Tronic choose to deliberately ignore that?

Tronic

24 Sep 13,, 23:21

The highlighted parts of the article are the 'alternate narrative', as pointed out in my 'disclaimer' preceding the article, or did you and Tronic choose to deliberately ignore that?

I only gave you a pat on the back... :Dancing-Banana:

antimony

26 Sep 13,, 05:20

The highlighted parts of the article are the 'alternate narrative', as pointed out in my 'disclaimer' preceding the article, or did you and Tronic choose to deliberately ignore that?

I am sure it was scrupulous of you to point out the disclaimer, though I am sure you knew it would be caught out anyway. However, you still chose to point out the specific juicy bits. This is not an "alternate narrative", its plain old mud slinging with the disclaimer : "Hey I am going to throw you some mud."

Agnostic Muslim

26 Sep 13,, 14:06

I am sure it was scrupulous of you to point out the disclaimer, though I am sure you knew it would be caught out anyway. However, you still chose to point out the specific juicy bits. This is not an "alternate narrative", its plain old mud slinging with the disclaimer : "Hey I am going to throw you some mud."
You can consider it 'mud slinging' just as much as I consider the anti-Pakistan claims made by Lemontree and others on this forum to be 'mud slinging' ... the fact of the matter is that Wajahat S Khan penned an article quoting the views of Pakistani government and intelligence officials about the events surrounding the deaths of the 5 Indian soldiers. I made clear that I those views should not be taken to be 'true' without additional verification.

antimony

26 Sep 13,, 15:01

You can consider it 'mud slinging' just as much as I consider the anti-Pakistan claims made by Lemontree and others on this forum to be 'mud slinging' ... the fact of the matter is that Wajahat S Khan penned an article quoting the views of Pakistani government and intelligence officials about the events surrounding the deaths of the 5 Indian soldiers. I made clear that I those views should not be taken to be 'true' without additional verification.

Lemontree's account is not mud slinging. He is not maligning the character of the PA with unsubstantiated info, he is just stating the results of a fight. Military victory or defeat has nothing to do with character.

Agnostic Muslim

26 Sep 13,, 15:21

Lemontree's account is not mud slinging. He is not maligning the character of the PA with unsubstantiated info, he is just stating the results of a fight. Military victory or defeat has nothing to do with character.

Suggesting that the Pakistani soldiers were 'cowed down' in exchanges of fire with the IA would be an attack on the 'character of the PA', and it would be an attack based on 'unsubstantiated info' since the Pakistani Army Officers I have contacted do not support LT's version of events.

antimony

29 Sep 13,, 02:54

Suggesting that the Pakistani soldiers were 'cowed down' in exchanges of fire with the IA would be an attack on the 'character of the PA', and it would be an attack based on 'unsubstantiated info' since the Pakistani Army Officers I have contacted do not support LT's version of events.

Really?

The orders were issued out after the skirmishes started. Gen Faheem had issued strict orders to only use light weapons(guns and mortars) and fire when fired upon. As Captain LT has posted, IA was using L-70AA and ATGMS while the PA side was only restricted to light arms.

As per your and NE's statements, the PA army took the (political) decision to use light weaponry while the IA used heavier weaponry. A light infantry force taking cover from heavier weapons is not cowardly, they are being operationally prudent. Thumping your chest and posturing would be stupid, and anyone claiming that would, I concede, be making an attack on the 'character of the PA'.:cool: